Falling for a pet

Finding out new things that can kill you and making you panic about it is one of the most important roles of the press, or the Fourth Estate, as it was called until real estate prices tumbled. (Now we’re known as the Fourth Single-Wide).

Admirably living up to this journalistic principle of excellence is a CNN report that states thousands of Americans were injured by tripping over their pets last year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about 86,000 fall injuries were caused by pets last year. I’m not exactly sure if I trust any information that comes from a place that calls itself “centers” instead of “center,” but for the sake of argument and a column being written on deadline, let’s accept the premise that some CDC guy took time off from researching important stuff like AIDS and cancer and actually counted the number of people who were treated for falls caused by their pets last year.

This evidence clearly supports my long held belief that nature is out to get us, and that paving paradise and putting up a parking lot isn’t such a bad idea after all.

My friend Bob nearly has the perfect life. His kids are grown and gone and his wife is hardly around because she’s going back to school for her master’s. The only thing separating Bob from middle-aged bliss is the continued existence of Rooster, a 9-year-old mutt. Bob’s always tripping over Rooster in the morning, as Rooster has become proficient in grabbing a leash in his mouth and wrapping it around Bob’s legs, sort of like that maneuver in “Empire Strikes Back “where the snowspeeders use their grappling hooks to pull down the AT-AT walkers. Bob’s only comfort in this matter is knowing that time is on his side.

“The dog’s nine, it can’t be much longer,” Bob says. “I keep feeding him table scraps and waiting for cholesterol to do its job. Sometimes I watch the traffic on my street from my living room, and if things get real busy, I leave the front door open.”

Let’s face it, animals, even pets, are animals. We spent millions of years hiding in trees and caves and sharpening stakes and doing other things to protect ourselves from them. Now all of a sudden (a few thousand years being a sudden in evolutionary terms) we want them to live with us and wear cute little Auburn University sweaters. How is this logical?

Under the law of nature, our pets are totally justified in trying to get us. Let’s face it, if someone was constantly grabbing you by the nose and shaking your head, had paid someone to have you castrated and made you eat from a bowl on the floor, you probably wouldn’t like them much and would enjoy getting a little of your own back by occasionally peeing on the floor or making them fall.

My point, if I have one, is this, before adopting a pet consider the following:

Could I take this animal if a Cujo scenario arose?

Could my live-in mother-in-law survive a broken hip if she tripped over this pet?

How much do I like my live-in mother-in-law?

My own agility level: Riverdance dancer or Gerald Ford?

Jim Cook can be contacted about his very dated, unfunny reference to Gerald Ford at .