Saturday, April 28, 2007

I fell off my chair...

I just had to share this one, an AAP story in today's Sydney Morning Herald:

Thousands of Japanese have been swindled in a scam in which they were sold Australian and British sheep and told they were poodles.

Flocks of sheep were imported to Japan and then sold by a company called Poodles as Pets, marketed as fashionable accessories, available at $1,600 each. That is a snip compared to a real poodle which retails for twice that much in Japan.

The scam was uncovered when Japanese moviestar Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk-show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food.

She was crestfallen when told it was a sheep.


Then hundreds of other women got in touch with police to say they feared their new "poodle" was also a sheep.

One couple said they became suspicious when they took their "dog" to have its claws trimmed and were told it had hooves.

Japanese police believe there could be 2,000 people affected by the scam, which operated in Sapporo and capitalised on the fact that sheep are rare in Japan, so many do not know what they look like. (Oh come on! Bloody elephants are rare in Australia but we all know what they look like!)

"We launched an investigation after we were made aware that a company were selling sheep as poodles," Japanese police said, the The Sun reported.

"Sadly we think there is more than one company operating in this way.

"The sheep are believed to have been imported from overseas - Britain, Australia."

Many of the sheep have now been donated to zoos and farms.


© 2007 AAP

5 comments:

caz said...

In sending you the article, I think I was a bit harsh in my judgment. Yes, we in Australia do know what elephants look like because we tend to see them now and again. But they rarely see sheep in Japan. Come to think of it, in all of my dozen visits to Japan I don't every remember seeing lamb on the menus. Perhaps I went to he wrong restaurants!!
The point that grabbed me was when a sheep was taken to have its nails clipped only to find they were not nails but hooves.!!

Choke choke, splutter splutter.

Caz.

inmotion said...

now that's just funny.

Elle said...

LOL!! Shame, too funny.

Dubai@Random said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dubai@Random said...

Please read the following article about the sheep sold as dogs in Japan.