Swedish Post Office Demands That Dog Sign For Mailed Package

A friend sent this dog named Chaya a new doggie toy
through the Swedish postal service, plunging her
into a funny bureaucratic mess.

If you want to send a doggie toy to a dog in Sweden, or anything to any animal there, don't address the package to the pet. Address the package to the animal's human companion.

Marie Palmgren and Chaya, her boxweiler dog, found this out the hard way.

A friend of Marie and Chaya's decided to mail a dog toy to Chaya. The friend playfully addressed the package to Chaya Palmgren.

According to The Dodo, this is how everything played out:

Marie got a note from her mail carrier that a large parcel had arrived and she needed to pick it up at the post office.  It was the doggie toy for Chaya.

In Sweden, the person (or animal) that receives a package at the post office has to show ID and sign for the package. Since the package was addressed to Chaya, postal workers insisted that Chaya had to show ID and sign for the package.

Marie tried to explain that Chaya was a dog and she'd sign it on her behalf.

But rules are rules!  "They still demanded an ID and a signature from Chaya, plus ID and signature from me as the 'helper' to fetch the package," Palmgren said.

The paw prints on this postal document after
Chaya "signed" it. 

Marie returned home, rummaged through some old records and found a registration document that proved Chaya was her pet. She grabbed the paper and headed back to the post office.

But Chaya still had to sign the document. Dogs are not allowed into the post office, which was another roadblock.

Finally, Palmgren  convinced a postal worker to bring an ink pad outdoors so Chaya could sign the paperwork.

Palmgren dipped a confused Chaya's paw into the ink pad and then pushed the paw onto the document, leaving a pawprint. Close enough to be a signature, the post office finally decided.

You can see the video at the bottom of this post a perplexed Chaya signing for his package.

Her bureaucratic nightmare over, Chaya
plays with the water fountain toy
her friend mailed her

You'd think the postal workers would have at least been amused by this situation.  Uh-uh.

"The staff was very serious all the time. It wasn't a funny thing for them.... Me? I was totally flabbergasted. When I reached the car, I laughed so much that I got a pain my stomach," Palmgren said.

To nobody's surprise, Swedish media had a field day with this, highlighting this as an extreme example of the super-strict adherence to policy by government agencies, The Dodo reported. 

The gift giver felt terrible her playfulness in addressing the package caused such a problem, but Palmgren brushed aside those concerns.

"She wanted to do a kind thing. She was so sorry that it turned into this circus of absurdity...But I told her, 'On the contrary. You managed to make so many people laugh.'"

As for Chaya, she reported loves her nifty water fountain toy.