Stuffed Animals

My dogs are smart. They're also fortunate to live with two people who care for them and take them to the vet regularly and are otherwise all-around good parents to them. Unlike the pups you see here.

See, they were used last year to smuggle heroin from Columbia into the US:

Investigators believe a Colombian-based heroin trafficking ring had used the dogs, as well as human couriers who swallowed the drugs, to smuggle heroin on commercial flights into New York.

The puppies were shipped to drug traffickers posing as dog trainers wanting Labrador and Rottweiler purebreds for dog shows, Colombia's national police said.

The Rottweiler, named Heroina, in the year since these events actually occurred, has become a police dog in Columbia:

After a lengthy recovery, the pooch was adopted by Colombia's Judicial Police in Medellin and given the name Heroina, a play on the Spanish words for both the illegal narcotic and a heroic female. Today, she's being trained to be part of a small army of Colombian dogs that sniff out drugs, and her two surviving companions are enjoying a dog's life as police officers' pets, said Gabriel Jaime Gutierrez, a police spokesman in Medellin.

Of six animals that were used as drug mules, 3 died of infection after surgery to remove the heroin that had been implanted in their bellies. The other three have been adopted out and are living healthy dog-lives.

I don't normally get too exercised about animal-abuse stories. Sure, they're sad and it is heartbreaking to read of animals who die or that suffer at the hands of stupid and selfish people. But this story struck a certain cord with me when I read of it this morning.

That pup in the far right corner reminds me too much of this.