Unbelievably disgusting trend

[DryCreek]

This is so wrong....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/28/business/28dogs.html?ex=1324962000&en=612f4d4668e7583c&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

[casablanca1]

eeeeeiiii. That's sad. Kind of cheering, in way, though, to remember that as frustrated as people get here, there is a pretty wide-spread awareness of puppy mills and pet stores as bad things, and the value of spay/neuter, etc. Japan's much worse off.

[iamawesum69420]

That's horrible. And I thought the states were bad about having people who only view dogs as an accessory. :(

[Boemy]

Japan is very "faddy."

On the "bright" side, in a year or two dogs will probably be "out" again and the demand will dry up. Not very cheering for the poor, unhealthy dogs out there now, of course, and sadly many will probably either die of genetic flaws or be abandoned by owners who were only interested in their "status value."

I wonder what the demand for dogs is usually like in Japan compared with the US?

[iamawesum69420]

Isn't Japan also home of the bonsai kittens?

[BostonBanker]

Isn't Japan also home of the bonsai kittens?

I'm pretty positive that was proven to be a hoax. Thankfully.

[bubbatd]

:yikes: ....hope the fad ends soon !!! Poor pups !!!

[Boemy]

Bonsai kittens are a hoax, like Boston said.

[Momof2Pups]

That is soo sad. . .:(:(

[~Jessie~]

I haven't read the full article yet, but blue is actually a normal chihuahua color, completely accepted by the AKC. My Rylie is fawn with blue markings, and her mom (a show dog) is solid blue with a little bit of fawn.

This part of the article isn't correct... the part about having to breed blue to blue to get blue. Actually, only one parent has to be blue... the other has to carry blue. You should not breed blue to blue, as this causes alopecia... but if blue is bred correctly, it isn't bad. Blue is not an unnatural color in dogs.

The article is sad, though :( I wish that people would stop looking at dogs as accessories.

[MelissaCato]

http://www.shorty.com/bonsaikitten/index.html

Read the guestbook .. people say they have bonsai kittens. :yikes:

[iamawesum69420]

I saw that, hopefully it really is just a hoax.

[~Jessie~]

The bonsai kitten thing is a hoax.

Also, in the article under more pictures, they show some blue merle chihuahuas. I have a blue merle chihuahua... this isn't an unusual color either.

[DryCreek]

The breeding for color issue was not the most important part to me, though breeding specifically for color above and beyond the health of the dog is wrong. The parts that bothered me the most were.....

genetically defective sister and brother puppies born with missing paws or faces lacking eyes and a nose.

There have been dogs with brain disorders so severe that they spent all day running in circles, and others with bones so frail they dissolved in their bodies. Many carry hidden diseases that crop up years later, veterinarians and breeders say.

and

One is Keika, a deaf 1-year-old female dachshund with eyes that wander aimlessly. Her breeder was originally selling her for about $7,500 because she is half-white, a rare trait in dachshunds.

“That is an unnatural color, like a person with blue skin,” Mr. Sasaki said.
The breeder told Mr. Sasaki that he had bred a dog with three generations of offspring — in human terms, first with its daughter, then a granddaughter and then a great-granddaughter — until Keika was born. The other four puppies in the litter were so hideously deformed that they were killed right after birth.


Is that true about the Dachshund? Don't really know the allowed colors for that breed.

[Buddy'sParents]

:eek: :eek:

Poor animals...

[Dreeza]

“Households with few or no children are turning to dogs to fill the void,” he said. “For a dog to be part of the family, it has to be unique and have character, like a person.”


Do people not realize that every single dog in all the shelters has their very own personality???? That is just really, really sad :(

[~Jessie~]

With dachsunds, a double dapple coloring pattern is allowed... this is where there are various amounts of white covering their body as well as the dapple pattern. So a dachsund that is partially white, or even half white with this pattern isn't really rare.

I remember reading a while back that dachsunds are the most colorful breed... they have the most color codes for registration out of all AKC recognized breeds.

[FoxyWench]

doxies actually come in a piebald pattern naturally, to show a pibald he shoud be 40-70% white...so no, not so rare to have a largley white doxie.

such a shame, hopefully the fad will pass quickly...quick someone invent something cute but none living and make a US celeb carry it round contantly, itll quickly catch on in japan and the dog fad will go out quickly...

[vanillasugar]

http://www.shorty.com/bonsaikitten/index.html

Read the guestbook .. people say they have bonsai kittens. :yikes:

Look at it more closely. They have no photos other than that of a kitten who's been put into a square jar, probably not for very long. No photos that actually suggest the kitten is sealed into said jar, or that the kitten is forced to LIVE in that jar.

Most of the responses I saw in the guest book seemed to be people "playing along" or being COMPLETLEY sarcastic. (infact, when I first visited the site years ago, there was a photo in the guest book of someone's "bonzai kitten" which was infact a fully grown cat, put under a glass bowl on the floor!)

Honestly, it's a hoax, and not a very well done one at that. It plays on your initial feelings about animal cruelty, and counts on you riding that emotion, getting angry and freaking out, instead of staying calm, and investigating the entire thing more closely.

Don't worry about this one, it's proven fake :)

[Shannerson]

That makes me sick to my stomach. Poor pooches. If I could get ahold of some of those people who breed them......uh....of course, they would have more rights than the poor puppy victims then.