Is your dog overly groggy in the morning? Does it take too long for them to climb out of their doggy bed for their morning walk? Fear those slow starting mornings no longer! “Rooffee,” an herbal drink advertised as “The World’s First Coffee Type Root Drink For All Mammals,” is here to save the day. If that name sounds familiar, that’s because you’re thinking of “roofies,” or Flunitrazepam, a pill that, unfortunately, is commonly slipped into drinks in order to incapacitate the drinker for nefarious purposes. There’s a lot going on here, so let’s focus on that name first.
Rooffee was created by Agota Jakutyte, a Lithuanian-born, UK-based former model turned entrepreneur, and she had no idea that her clever name was actually a rather infamous substance. This was largely due to a mix up in translation since English isn’t exactly her first language. “Honestly, I never faced this terrible thing [roofies] in our country,” Jakutyte told BuzzFeed in an email. “My first and the main intention was to show the roots and coffee connection and unfortunately, I haven’t googled it. Probably I’m too busy with my shelter dogs and entrepreneurship.” That is incredibly unfortunate, but a quick Google search could have cleared all this up.
Mix up or not, people had a very strong reaction. Most people focused on the obvious misstep: that atrocious name and the fact that no one pointed out the unfortunate similarities it shared with an illegal substance that is most commonly used to assault unsuspecting victims. With a subject matter so severe, it’s no wonder people are up in arms about it.
— James H. (@Orginal_James) October 28, 2017
“What’s up?”
— Sam (@SamRea14) October 26, 2017
“Oh not much, just gave my dog a rooffee”
For a product that has “coffee” in its name, there’s actually no coffee in Rooffe. That’s actually a good thing, since The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) has a warning on its website, advising pet owners to avoid feeding their animals coffee since it can cause seizures, vomiting, and even death. Instead, Rooffee is made from dandelion root, hawthorn, chicory, burdock, carrots, as well as other herbs and vegetables. Still, despite the fact that it’s safe to consume (as far as we know), some people asked the most important question of all: why?
Can't wait until they invent cars for dogs cuz then they can run over and kill me so I don't have to see stupid shit like this.
— JabroniReport (@LeviKrieg) October 26, 2017
HOW ABOUT SOMETHING THAT ACTUALLY WORKS LIKE “PAWFEE”
— 𓀐𓂸[ 𝖘𝖈𝖗𝖊𝖊𝖈𝖍𝖎𝖓𝖌 ]𓀐𓂸 (@freebasecatnip) October 26, 2017
There were so many other, better names that they could have gone with, but they picked the one name guaranteed to fail. Luckily, they quickly realized this and created a poll on their website to help choose a new name. Wooffee Brew and Pawfee are top contenders, but personally, we prefer Barkachino.
