Although this man wasn’t arrested for bringing his pet zebra and parrot to a bar, he was detained for attempting to drive them home while intoxicated.
Jerald Reiter, a farmer hailing from Dubuque, Iowa—situated at the intersection of his home state and bordering Illinois and Wisconsin—was apprehended in the parking lot of the Dog House Lounge on suspicions of drunk driving, with his peculiar passengers in the front seat.
According to police, field sobriety tests indicated that the 55-year-old had a blood alcohol level of .14, which is nearly double Iowa’s legal limit.
Reiter mentioned that he and his girlfriend consider the animals—three-month-old zebra PeeWee and parrot Izzy—as friends, often bringing them to a bar that occasionally allows animals indoors.
He remarked, “I said, ‘Let’s go for a ride.’ I ain’t been away from the farm for almost two months because I’ve been planting corn and everything else. So I opened the door, the zebra jumps in, the macaw loves to go for a ride, so we went for a ride.”
Nevertheless, the animals were refused entry, and the bar contested Reiter’s assertion that pets were permitted inside, stating that nothing short of dogs is allowed in the venue, despite its name.
After he began to drive away from the bar, Reiter realized he was too intoxicated to continue and was planning to let a (human) friend take over the driving when he was intercepted by the police instead.
He suspects that a passerby snapping photos of the pets may have alerted law enforcement.
