Dog owners 'fleeced' in poodle scam

OK, this one is an old one, but a good one. It made me laugh just as much today as it did when I read it the first time a few months ago.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Thousands of people have been 'fleeced' into buying neatly coiffured lambs they thought were poodles. Entire flocks of lambs were shipped over from the UK and Australia to Japan by an internet company and marketed as the latest 'must have' accessory. But the scam was only spotted after a leading Japanese actress said her 'poodle' didn't bark and refused to eat dog food.

The discovery prompted hundreds of women to contact the police with similar problems and the authorities believe as many as 2,000 people have been conned. Poodles are famously used by the rich and glamorous on the continent but are extremely rare in Japan, with many people having little idea what they look like.

I'm not really sure how someone can mistake a lamb for a dog. I'm willing to give these poor, conned, Japanese women the benefit of the doubt and believe that since Poodles are rare in Japan, it might be easy to buy a lamb and think you now were one of the rich elite with your cool Poodle. But I'm pretty certain that there are dogs in Japan. So then I have to wonder why no one was the least bit curious as to why their "dog" never barked, or why their "dog" liked to eat grass, or why their "dog" had hooves!