May 19th, 2006

Filed under:
Flora and Fauna
12 Comments »

Unethical Business Idea of the Week

Two words: puppy leasing.

The family dog was born before I was, so I’ve never lived with a puppy. However, people seem to love them. They’re small, cute and attract plenty of attention when you take them out for a walk.

Puppies, however, grow up into dogs.

But what if that never happened? What if you could treat your dog like your SUV? You sign up for a program, and lease dogs for a period of, say, six months or a year.

After that period, you return the young dog for another young puppy. You can have the same breed (and, heck, call it the same thing) or a different one, whichever you prefer.

Of course, there’s the unfortunate problem of what you do with the former puppies. But you, as a discerning consumer, don’t have to worry about that sort of thing.

Comments: 12 Responses so far

Andrea
May 19th, 2006
8:28 pm

Now would you throw in a handbag?

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Matt
May 19th, 2006
8:47 pm

You can actually sorta do that through the SPCA.. foster pet parenting. But you usually end up with sick and/or recently sick dogs.

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Matt Westervelt
May 19th, 2006
9:34 pm

Go high tech, make em clones.

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Rob Cottingham
May 19th, 2006
9:37 pm

Or you could train assistance dogs. Or just have a Lab; they’re goofy enough well into their later years that people still think they’re puppies.

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Celia
May 19th, 2006
10:56 pm

There’s bound to be a day soon when we can genetically engineer animals that will stay small and cute. Imagine, puppies and kittens that stay puppies and kittens! I mentioned this billion dollar idea once to a geneticist friend of mine who chuckled and said that it would be tantamount to finding eternal youth. Well then, everybody’s happy!

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Steve
May 20th, 2006
2:54 am

I’ll go one better: Puppy of the month club.

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Mi
May 20th, 2006
4:21 pm

We’re already there. You can get minatures of many breeds.

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LS
May 20th, 2006
5:45 pm

You an already do this and for a good cause — people are always needed to raise potential Guide dog puppies. Call your local CNIB/guide do school

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James
May 24th, 2006
2:39 pm

Perhaps my imagination is darker than everyone else’s here, but I can conjure up a Swiftian scenario, a modest proposal on puppies, if you will, that takes care of the ‘what to do with the puppies when they’re no longer puppies’ problem.

In many countries this would be the sensible thing to do.

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James
May 24th, 2006
2:42 pm

Oh, and the manfriend of my mom (when parents grow up and having ’significant others’ we need a different name for them) suggested dog rentals a few years ago. In his plan, the dogs would be well-training with a standardized set of commands. People drop in, select a dog, rent them for however long they like, then drop them off again. There could also be a boon industry in dog accesories: collars, chew toys, jackets, treats. All those things that make me reconsider the moral good of the gun registry.

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Dlamn
July 31st, 2007
11:09 am

Here it is, more than a year later. I come up with the great idea of puppy leasing and do a search only to find out that you thought it up back in 2006. Curses!!!!

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Rosstam
September 11th, 2007
6:44 am

Turning a living creation into a rentable toy. Converting a loveable companion into temporary enjoyment. In my view just the thought of this kind of organization defines corruption. For any consumers to approve of this type of business upsets me even more than those who conceived the thought of leasing puppies. Not only does this business idea spell out unethical, but even more so boarder lines evil.

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