Rob Fox
The machines are officially rising, and a dog was almost their first casualty. A 14-pound, elderly Shih Tzu named Stonewall was minding his own business in his home in suburban St. Louis when the demon puck that roams his house finally took its opportunity to attack.
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The poor little guy wound up with his tail caught in the robot vacuum and his owner completely freaking out. Megan Dunavant found her pup snagged by the vacuum and rolling around every which way, in a panic, trying to get out. Having absolutely no idea what to do in this situation, and completely alone at home, Dunavant called 911.
Two Ballwin police officers showed up a short while later and the three of them got to work getting Stonewall free from the Skynet vacuum. The officers soon realized that the pup was only stuck in the vacuum by the hair of its tail, so they went about cutting him out with the precision and care of a brain surgeon, making sure they didn’t take any tail with them on the way out.
Eventually, the officers were able to free Stonewell and the dog was no worse for the wear, though he’s probably not a big fan of the vacuum anymore. (In fact, one reason this happened is that Dunavant claims Stonewall was, unlike most dogs, not afraid of the vacuum. It looks like all of our dogs weren’t being so unreasonable after all.)
Stonewall’s owner says that the next time she releases the vacuum to do its work she’ll probably be keeping Stonewall in his kennel. Meanwhile, this is a gross miscalculation by the machines. If they wanted to kill humans most of us would be hardpressed to blame them. The resistance would be pretty half-hearted. But come after our dogs and the human freedom fighters will make the Viet-Cong look like a dodgeball team.
This story was originally published November 27, 2019.
