A woman who tried to mail a puppy in a box from Minnesota to Georgia now wants the puppy back, along with the $22 she paid to ship the dog.
When Stacey Champion first brought the box to the post office, she warned postal workers to be careful, but reassured them that she was shipping a toy robot. But when the box began to move and make noise, workers got permission to open it, and found a 4-month old puppy inside named Guess, a black poodle-Schnauzer mix. The postal workers gave the thirsty pup some water, and now he's at an animal control facility.
Prior to notifying authorities that she wanted the dog back, Champion returned to the post office demanding a refund of the $22 she paid to mail the puppy, in addition to requesting that a small amount of money attached to a makeshift dog collar be returned.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports:
Postal workers nixed the refund and told her to contact law enforcement about the collar currency. "We asked her, don't you want to know about your puppy? But she said no. She just wanted her money back," [post office supervisor Thompson] Ojoyeyi said.
Stacey Champion meanwhile has been charged with animal cruelty. She recently attended a hearing to request getting the dog back, but the request was denied. A hearing officer is seen telling her in this CNN report, "You cannot tell me that you thought you were doing the right thing."
But Champion claims that she did in fact think that what she was doing was not only right, but a nice gesture. Champion explains that she intended to send the puppy to her son on his birthday because she "wanted to surprise him really, really good." She poked holes in the box (which later were covered up by tape) and argues, "They don't have a display of what should be shipped and what should not be shipped." According to the Star Tribune, Champion wrote on the outside of the package, "This is for your 11th birthday. It's what you wanted." However, it seems unlikely that a child would want a dead puppy for his birthday, which would likely have been Guess' fate had postal workers not intercepted the package.