Don't know how many of you heard, but aliens invaded the Wasatch Front Saturday, and absolutely enormous shelter dogs were our only hope. You may have missed it.
At least, that's what happened according to a Facebook post by The Humane Society of Utah, which Photoshopped four of their dogs into scenes of Earth-saving , UFO-battling heroics. It was a fun way for the shelter to promote adoption, because "you never what story your shelter pet might have to share," according to the post.
In this case, it was a story of talking, skyscraper-sized dogs who, like The Avengers, banded together to save us from an invasion from beyond the stars.
"I don't think the humans could see or hear them, but I could smell them coming from a mile away," Dionysus, a 3-year-old pit bull, is quoted as telling a local newspaper in the post. "I've been living on the streets until I made it to the HSU. I thought, if these aliens take over I'll never get a home … So I took action!"
It's no wonder Dionysus shares a name with a Greek god. Look at those mythological proportions! She towers over the Wasatch Mountains like a kaiju.
The relatively smaller Milo, a Schnauzer mix who looks about twice as big as the shelter, defended his temporary home. In the picture, he's apparently about to snatch the UFO in his massive jaws.
"I've been taking care of humans my whole life … I wasn't about to stop now," he's quoted in the post.
Meanwhile, everyone in the LDS General Conference must have been paying rapt attention to have missed Madison, a Beagle-Labrador mix, and Jax, a Labrador mix, taking the fight for our planet downtown. Like Milo, the part-Labs opened their maws and the UFOs seemed to have met dark, slobbery fates.
"It was up to us dogs," Madison said, before critiquing the apparently ineffectual feline defenders. "You know the cats just swatted them out the air and would hold them down and then just let them up again?!? I don't think they understood the threat they posed. [Some] were just sleeping through the attack."
Madison and Jax, the downtown heroes, have already been adopted, according to the Facebook post. Dionysus and Milo are still waiting to find homes, and people interested in adopting these Salt Lake City legends, and any others, can learn more at utahhumane.org.
The Facebook post cites a local newspaper for the dogs' quotes, though it does not specify which one. A quick scan of our website, and that of our competition's, shows it was neither of us. This is clearly a big wake up call to local media to pay better attention, since both of us should have noticed gargantuan dogs thrashing UFOs outside our respective buildings.
Michael McFall
Twitter: @mikeypanda