Upon eating owner's letter, dog gets his own from Christian County Courthouse

A jury questionnaire, torn to shreds and taped back together, was sent to the Christian County Circuit Court a few weeks ago.

Attached was a note: "Sorry for the damage, the dog thought it was his."

Upon receiving it, Deputy Court Clerk Michele Walker did something she's never done before — she wrote a letter addressed to a dog.

The letter reads:

"Dear Dog: Please thank your owners for returning the Jury Questionnaire that was addressed to William Wakefield. Also, please let them know we appreciate them taping it back together after you accidentally thought it was yours to have. We hope that you did not get into trouble for mistaking it as your own."

Walker told the News-Leader seeing the note with the torn up questionnaire and the care the owners took to tape the document together "really made my day."

"It was cute," Walker said. "I was having a really bad day so it just really perked (me) up."

In the letter, Walker wished the dog a happy Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year.

"Hope that all your dreams come true!" she told the dog.

Walker said the circuit clerk's office sends out from 1,500 to 2,500 jury questionnaires every four months. She's seen all manners of defaced documents (usually kids' drawings) as well as excuses.

"No one has used a dog before, so it really just got me," Walker said.

The name of the dog, a husky lab mix, is Cinder.

The name of his human is Alex Wakefield, who recently moved from Christian County to Kansas City. Wakefield is a relative of News-Leader employee Amos Bridges.

Cinder is about a year old and as Wakefield described, "a big, big puppy."

"He's basically chewed up everything in our apartment at this point," Wakefield said. "I don't think there's a thing he hasn't chewed at some point in here."

So, it didn't come as a surprise to Wakefield's girlfriend, Taylor Bolls, when she found the jury questionnaire torn to shreds after the letter was left on a low counter top.

Bolls taped the paper back together and sent an apology to the courthouse, anticipating that whoever opened the letter would be angered by the "dog ate my homework" cliche.

"It's pretty funny just because usually people are trying to get out of jury duty," Wakefield said. "I'm glad that they got a kick out of it."