January 5, 2007--Friday In Florida: Puppy Lemon Laws

I was having trouble with this blue Chihuahua thing.

It seems that in Japan they are in hot demand—blue Chihuahuas. People are willing to pay up to $10,000 for a puppy and wait for months until breeders can generate one. I don’t get hairless dogs this size, but OK there’s no accounting for taste. Taste aside, I really don’t understand longing for a blue one. Forget the $10,000. (See NY Times article linked below.)

But then the other morning we were having breakfast at Luna Rosa, a nice place right on the beach in Delray, Florida. Good food, decent coffee, and very, very pet-friendly. So friendly to pooches that even before they bring coffee to the humans they trot out doggy bowls filled with water for all the many dogs curled up on customers’ laps or under their chairs.

So while waiting sort-of patiently for our coffee, we couldn’t help but listen in on some of the chat among the dog owners. Calling them “owners” doesn’t quite capture it—from the conversations they might more appropriately be called the adults in the dog’s family. Something like that.

One toned, well-Botoxed matron said, “When we brought a baby brother home to our 20 month old, he was so unhappy that we thought maybe we had made a mistake by having another one. But I think he’ll do all right. It’s so difficult making an adjustment to a newborn.”

An English expat in Madras shorts added, “What color is his hair? Brown? Oh, I love brown. My oldest has blonde hair. But I know, yes, both are nice.”

And a Snow Bird from New Jersey opined to a commiserating friend, “I had the same problem with my third one. The first two were getting along so well. But for the second oldest, becoming the one in the middle is especially difficult. It’s the birth order problem again. You’re no longer the baby and feel no one cares about you any more. She just lay around pouting and even stopped eating. I was so worried about her I called the doctor. But over time she adjusted. We made sure to pay a lot of attention to her and buy her her favorite foods.”

So this helped me understand what is going on in Japan—sociologists are saying that in households where there are no children people are turning to dogs “to fill the void.” And the blue dog thing links the Japanese obsession with things that are cute and cuddly with their eagerness to embrace fads. Remember the Tamagotchi craze? A virtual pet that grew up on a computer screen, if you took good care of it? Now blue Chihuahuas are the expensive rage.

But in the meantime they’re having all sorts of problems. To get the smallest, cutest, cuddliest blue-hued dogs requires all sorts of selective inbreeding. And for every perfect little fella there are numerous ones that pop out with serious birth defects such as missing eyes, noses, or paws. Not cute at all.

We are seeing a version of this in the U.S. where more and more people are seeking more and more unusual pets. So much so that some states have enacted “puppy lemon laws,” which like with the lemon laws for cars, holds breeding mills responsible for “defective” pups.

It’s about time! And now if Florida would only pass legislation requiring restaurants to get me my coffee before dogs get their bowls of water everything would be right with the world.