They should make a movie based on this. Kind of like what they did with “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia.” Either a direct take or a loose inspiration with modified lyrics. But either way, with the cat telling the story or filmed from the cat’s perspective.
A POINT ON HOW A PARTICULAR LINE IN A DIRECT TAKE MIGHT WORK:
“The Dealer had a knife and the dog had a gun and the cat had a shot of Rye.”
Unless one takes the “dog” and “cat” as actually being humans colloquially referred to as such, this seems written just to bring a silly image to the song. To make it into a serious story:
Set the scene in the back of the bar, where Della and the animals are off to the side while Randy and the dealer have their altercation. The cat is given a liquid snack to keep him out of trouble, while the dog is wearing a pack holding a concealed firearm (be it belonging to the dealer or Della), the idea being that the canine was less likely to be searched. Yielding this once to the generally-disliked-by-me Chekov’s Gun rule, this weapon is used by either Della or Randy, to dispatch the dealer (in legitimate defense – the dealer attacks Randy with a knife).
