/ 7 January 2008

Dog hospitalised for being over the limit

A dog was admitted to a veterinary clinic in Austria on the weekend, barely able to stand on his own four paws and reeking “like a beer hall”, a newspaper reported on Monday.

Dingo, a three-year-old Labrador weighing 40kg, was a pitiful sight when his owner, a hunter, brought him in to the surgery in the Salzkammergut region, the Oberoesterreichische Nachrichten quoted vet Karl Hofbauer as saying.

“The dog had dreadful wind and diarrhoea, and was vomiting a lot,” Hofbauer said.

“When I got him up on the table, it smelt like a distillery.”

Tests indicated that the dog had a blood alcohol content of 1,6mg per litre of blood.

But that was not the result of Dingo having one drink too many, the owner insisted.

The hungry pooch had stolen and secretly devoured half a kilogramme of fresh yeast dough from the kitchen. Alcohol had formed inside his stomach as a result of the fermentation process, leaving poor old Dingo stone drunk.

“Nasty minded people said that we hunters are often drunk. With me, it’s my dog,” joked the owner. — AFP