If this turns out to be what really happened, this is deplorable:

Instead, the lawsuit says, the dog was given a sedative to make it appear she was dead. The clinic then gave Annie to a new owner, Gene Rizzo of Northeast Philadelphia, who cared for the dog until he had her euthanized on November 2, according to the lawsuit.

So the family thinks their dog is being euthanized only to find out later the dog was given to another owner? First of all, why? Secondly, if there was financial gain on the part of the clinic — IE. they were getting paid for euthanization that they didn’t actually perform — they should be sued.

I’m not big on the whole let’s sue meme, but this seems so wrong. Pets are human beings to some people. Man’s best friend, all that. Fido’s owner’s bite is worse than his bark.

Speaking of lawsuits, a blogger from Maine is getting sued by an ad agency over criticisms lodged to the tourism biz office, including a juicy picture with a misprinted phone number that led to a phone sex (like that doesn’t happen pretty often with 800 numbers). This story has everything except a lobster. Shouldn’t any story about Maine have in it a crustacean with big claws?

Or as Booger said in Revenge of the Nerds: “WTF are robster craws?”

Scott Johnson got his claws into the ad company side of the story (thanks Scoble) but ultimately sides with the blogger. Scott points out that Google search results play into the concern of the website.

This reminds me of Uncle Ben’s words to Peter Parker in Spider-man: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Note to blogger readers: if what you post ends up being prominent on Google search results then work very hard to remain accurate and factual when reporting the account of events, especially where you aren’t a first party to those events. If you don’t know something is a fact, don’t say that it is so. If you are unsure, check multiple sources and if you make a mistake, then print a retraction post haste. That will help your credibility not only with readers, it might just keep you out of legal hot water.

Readers should note that I intentionally use “allegedly” and “if this is true” to couch some fang-filled criticisms just as in the vet story above. I would recommend others do the same. Unless you know what really happened — and how many bloggers do — be very careful about how you describe the facts. Furthermore, I’d write most commentary from a point of doubt rather than believe because a lot of what you see and read on the web is inaccurate and not the whole story anyway. Yes, I believe strongly in the First Amendment, but that doesn’t give anybody, myself included, the right to damage a business with statements made that are incorrect and untrue. And I’m not saying whether or not this Maine blogger said or did anything wrong — I don’t really care that much about the Maine tourism business enough to investigate further. As long as people like Mr. Johnson are willing to do so, this ad agency probably doesn’t have too much to worry about. What the courts will find, if it even gets that far, remains to be seen.

Still, I am curious how many others would really be impacted and dissuaded by following a link to a blogger’s rant about the tourism business just because it was a top result in Google? I certainly don’t take the word/opinion of just one source. Do you? I’d like to think most people can weigh the bulk of information rather than relying on a single source. If that’s the case then pretty much anything coming from a single source, no matter how influential in Google, shouldn’t be that damaging.

I guess this is our lesson of the day? Maybe there were some lobster claws in the story after all. Hopefully no wallets are pinched in this one on either side. I think some bloggers go too far but I’ll let readers judge for themselves if that’s the case here. At least on the latter part. On the vet side — again, if that story turns out to be true — absolutely, positively shameful.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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