A community in northern Ohio is learning the hard way that too much of a good thing can have diminishing returns, and it is honestly extremely hard to watch: This rural town is getting less and less positive publicity with each dog they elect to citywide office.
This is officially one of the most embarrassing things we’ve ever seen.
When the town of Annandale, Ohio first elected a golden retriever named Bailey as their mayor, people all over America instantly fell in love. The @MayorBailey Instagram account quickly amassed over 400,000 followers and tourists flocked to the town to meet the cutest city official around. However, since then, the town has appointed 60 other dogs to citywide office, receiving increasingly tepid responses each time.
It really seems like the folks in Annandale have gone overboard with the dogs.
“We just appointed a shiba inu named Ryuk as the superintendent for our school district and a chihuahua named Apricot as the chief of police, and in both cases their Instagram accounts have fewer than 500 followers,” said Marcia Haywood, one of three remaining human members of the ten-seat Annandale town council. “We thought that more dogs in government would mean more viral fame for Annandale, but for whatever reason the public isn’t as excited about a five-dog budget committee as they were about a dog as mayor.”
The town of Annandale recently made an Instagram post featuring a picture of a greyhound named Queen Lisa and the caption, “Say hello to Annandale’s new chief librarian! Her favorite books are Shiloh and Call of the Wild.” This announcement received just ten likes, and the only person to comment on the post simply wrote, “dog looks ill.”
Yikes. It might be time to quit the dog schtick, Annandale. At this point, the whole thing sort of smacks of desperation.
Despite the public’s increasingly indifferent response to the dozens of dogs currently governing Annandale, Ms. Haywood and the remaining humans on the city council are optimistic that the American people will eventually come around.
“I cracked the code and it’s so simple: our problem is that we don’t have enough dogs running the city,” Ms. Haywood explained. She says that once the entire city is governed by dogs, Annandale will become an internet darling again. “There is no longer a place for humans in Annandale’s government. We need dogs to be in charge of us. Once we are fully under the rule of dogs, people will love us like they did when we first told them about our dog mayor.”
In keeping with this grand vision, Ms. Haywood has announced that next week she will step down from her seat on the city council so that she can be replaced by a Yorkshire terrier named Matchbox. At this point, the internet seems pretty much done with Annandale’s canine government antics, but the town’s attempts to go permanently viral for their all-dog government appear to be far from over. This is just humiliating. Hang it up, Annandale!
