“This is for your 11th birthday. It’s what you wanted,” was written on the outside of an Atlanta-bound Priority Mail box in a Minneapolis post office. It caught postal workers’ attention when it started moving on its own and making loud panting sounds. They got permission to open the box and found… a four-month old poodle-schnauzer mix puppy who was very, very happy to be free. The woman who mailed the box was charged with animal cruelty, then went back to the post office to try to get a refund for the $22 in postage she paid.

The woman has not explained to authorities why she mailed the dog, how she thought it would reach its destination, or whether she realized she would be traumatizing the recipient with a dead puppy in a box. A Minneapolis police officer told the Star-Tribune:

If you don’t identify [a package] so that it can be handled properly, it goes into the cargo hold of an airplane. It gets 40 below in those cargo planes that get up 40,000 feet. And there was no food or water. Puppies can’t go for long periods without food or water.

The Priority Mail would have arrived in at least two days, but the dog had zero chance of survival: the box’s air holes had been taped over.

The woman has not stated whether she wants the puppy back or not. He is in the custody of local animal control, and will go up for adoption if the woman who mailed him loses her appeal of the animal cruelty charges, or doesn’t want him back.

If not for postal clerks, puppy would have been DOA [Star-Tribune] (Thanks, Bettina!)