Clerical Error Results in Dog Being Neutralized

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Written by: Matt Olson

The fatal flaw of the project was that it did not have any air holes; the paper mache volcano’s lava couldn’t flow properly.
Photo by: Jessica Ma

Scientists everywhere were shocked late last week when veterinarians at a PetSmart in Bakersfield were able to successfully neutralize a dog. The first operation of its kind, the neutralization was a total success, as vets were able to completely neutralize Bandit after a grueling eighteen hour operation, as well as a light face trim and a bath.

Bandit was initially brought to the PetSmart by his owner, Timothy Miller, for a minor surgery. According to Miller, he had no idea that his dog was about to become a scientific miracle.

“I just brought him in to be neutered,” said Miller. “I could have never imagined the situation was so severe. I mean, I’ve never even heard of a dog being neutralized. But that’s what the vet wrote down, so I’m guessing Bandit was probably in real danger. It says right here,” said Miller, pointing to his dog’s medical chart. “If you squint, this word kind of says ‘neutralize,’ I think.”

According to Vanessa Davis, the manager of the PetSmart, the staff wasn’t entirely sure how to approach the daunting task of neutralizing a dog.

“To be honest, we’d never really done this before. There aren’t really guidelines for this sort of thing. We know how to neuter a dog of course, but neutralizing a dog is an entirely different story. Eventually, we realized this was far beyond our scope as simple veterinarians. We needed outside help. Luckily, Jim’s cousin works for NASA, so we contacted him, and it took off from there.”

NASA’s official offer was to simply launch Bandit into orbit, which would “probably work.” However, after NASA was contacted, the scientific community at large caught wind of the dilemma and worked together in order to try to tackle the problem. Debates raged as people tried to figure out exactly what constituted neutralizing a dog. Philosophers debated whether it was enough to simply reduce the dog to dust and negate its influence on the world, or if the only way to truly neutralize Bandit was to destroy any memory or mark made by the dog, as if he had never existed in the first place.

Swiss physicists from CERN called PetSmart and offered to build a dog-sized particle accelerator in an effort to propel Bandit at near the speed of light, hopefully creating an anti-Bandit and completely neutralizing the Bandit reaction. This has been met with some criticism, as some physicists argue that doing so will create a Bandit-shaped black hole, which would technically neutralize him, but also most of the life on Earth, to which CERN’s official response was “yeah, but think about how cool that would be.”

Eventually, due to urging from students from Bakersfield College and a fundamental misunderstanding of Schrodinger’s cat, the PetSmart employees decided that the best course of action was to seal Bandit inside an airtight glass box, in order to negate his ability to interact with the world. Scientists from around the globe gathered to observe the historic event, as Bandit was mildly sedated and placed inside a sealed cube. Hours later, as Bandit continued to not breathe or move, scientists were able to confirm that the dog was completely neutral. Veterinarians also stated that an unintended side effect of the neutralization resulted in Bandit being neutered, and he is no longer capable of having puppies of any kind.

Upon returning to PetSmart days later, Miller was given a package, which was described by a scientist as “the single greatest achievement in any field of science in the last 150 years,” and by Miller as “my dead dog in a glass box.”

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