No fucking way. This is a "Wallace and Gromit" script that got misdirected into the news media.

Not to mention, you can sell poodles for $3200 in Japan? Seems like there is ample room for arbitrage here.

A) If you believe that, you'll believe this!

B) In my view of things, a pet sheep would be far better than a pet poodle!

Awesome.

I can't stop chuckling at this line:

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

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.

I can't find any info on Maiko Kawamaki, but Maiko Kawakami is a Japanese movie star, so maybe that's a typo in the news story. She's not exactly what I'd call pretty, though.

Hoax maybe?

Got to be hoax. Just because they're oriental doesn't mean they're stupid.

There's a similar thing going on in the Netherlands. So I dunno...

Actually, I was wrong in 6 (NSFW). Maiko Kawakami is indeed an actress, and not the male who appeared in all the first page image hits from googling the name. So, maybe real?

Work-safe picture of Maiko attached to the original Sun article. I know, I know, it's The Sun. GB, TTom, you guys see anything in the Japanese press about this?

That manicured sheep is the greatest.

I found some Japanese links referring to the story, and I think that they might corroborate it. This link has a comment which seems to be from somebody who saw Maiko Kawakami on TV, and this blog also refers to what I think is the story. So if a Japanese reader happens by later, he can tell us, maybe.

I've also got some miniature ravens and rare toy dodos for sale at good prices.

In the beginning, the Good Lord created the heavens and the earth. And after that he made three big mistakes. The first was Man. The second was Wo-Man. And the third was the Poodle. He was trying to make a sheep, but he fucked up.

14: I'm always so pleased when somebody gets the Zappa references.

15: Well, I usually get them now, but only because I google the ones that don't seem to really make much sense. Probably doesn't count.

There's nothing in Google News Japan, possibly because it happened on TV and the story hasn't been picked up by domestic print yet.

The first link is talking about hearing the story on the radio, but not mentioning Kawakami's name - probably another victim.

I've found another secondhand recounting of the story relating to Kawakami. There, it's an "acquaintance" of Kawakami it happened to.

The Japanese tellers do seem just as bowled over at the story as we are.

Translation of first link in 15, including author's comments:

--
It had been this person's dream for years to have a black toy poodle, and so she did a lot of looking into prices. One day she found a black poodle at a price much lower than usual - her long-dreamt-of lifestyle began.

But even after ten days, the "child" (=pet) had no appetite whatsoever. Could the child be seriously ill, perhaps? -she worried, and mustered up the courage to take him to the hospital, where the doctor asked:

"Do you really think this is a toy poodle?"

"Yes. Well, he's a little big, he might be an avatism, a regular poodle rather than a toy poodle. But we gave him a name, and really treasure him. It's only been several days, but we consider him an important part of our family. Doctor, tell us, is he really sick with something?"

The doctor turned to the family and said:

"This child isn't a poodle, it's a goat." (NOTE: Japanese seem to blur the sheep/goat distinction.)

(continuous line of little sheep GIFs)

This really seems fishy or made-up to me.

It's a goat being compared! Normally someone should recognize.

My husband: "Wouldn't they tell from it having hooves?"

--

SEXISM ALERT: I translated the protagonist with "she" despite there being no grammatical indication either way.

That is to say, before the last line.

You can definitely sell purebred dogs for thousands of dollars in Japan. Like, $5,000 or more in some cases. It's ridiculous. Even mixed-breeds will fetch (ha!) up to $1,000.

BTW, the story seems fake to me, but I'm on the case and I will report back on its truthiness quotient later.

Nothing in Japanese Google News...

I say it's an urban legend.

Here's another posting of the poodle/goat tale on a Japanese forum, beginning, "This is a story from my mom's friend, but..." In that version of the tale, the poodle-buyer is not Ms. Kawamaki, but an anonymous poor sap.

Another poster's response: "Is today April 1st? I can't believe that story. Did you hear it on April 1st?"

I share your skepticism, GB, but it seems reasonable that it did appear on TV at least, true or not. I've gone through about 10 blog entries so far that describe it, in varying terms but almost exactly the same content, like different people relaying a story from the same source. Also, most of them mention the show ごきげんよう by name. And another mentioned that the "seller's home page" had already been taken down (though no link).

Maybe once I find the Japanese name of the store I can find an archive of it.

Is it true, tho, that they don't have sheep or goats in Japan? I kind of assumed they were universal.

What kind of domestic animals do they have that we lack?

Robots.

Less that they don't have them, more that the agricultural core of Japan heavily favors grains over grazing animals. Grazing animals are more in out-of-the-way places like Hokkaido. Add heavy urbanization, and you get fuzziness on livestock.

Historically, herd animals of most kinds were rare in Japan compared to Europe, though they existed -- so much that they used human waste instead of animal as manure. Linguistic item that fits with this: Japanese doesn't use separate terms for male and female animals.

What kind of domestic animals do they have that we lack?

Tentacle-porn monsters. And Godzilla.

I took at look at the story last night and found nothing. Japanese know what sheep and goats are (and have dfifferent names for them), I've seen a few around in hikes around Tokyo, and they raise them in Hokkaido (where Sapporo is), so I don't buy 2000 people there being scammed.

Also, this is not the type of scam that one could just walk away from and not be found, especially in Japan.

My wife found it hard to believe, even as she is convinced there are plenty of fools among her countrymen.

What kind of domestic animals do they have that we lack?
Cetaceans, in scattered herds. They kill and eat them, purely for scientific purposes of course, and as mandated by the whaling moratorium convention (Flipper and pals being excluded from such caring use).

Scattered pods, Tom. Get it right.

Also, what is the title of this post a reference to? I'm at a loss to say.

Reference.

apo, for some reason, I really don't want to try to understand the poodle references in that Zappa song.

GB, I appreciate you trying to keep me on my toes. But herd is just as acceptable (googling cetacean with herd or pod is split evenly, but "school" is used by far most often) and is more appropriate here, where the reference was to domestic animals.

But while we're on that meme, I would venture that outright ownership of various whales is the best way to deal with conservation issues.

30: Generally anytime one doesn't understand a title at apostropher, it's a good bet that googling it will get you to some Zappa lyrics. I sort of tried to say that in 16.

28：Oh, right, it was the Chinese who were fuzzy on the sheep/goat thing.

Google results:

"School of whales": 960
"Herd of whales": 6,900
"Pod of whales": 35,300

Suck it.

The clear winner:

Suck if of whales: 410,000

Snopes says hoax/urban legend.

GB, try it my way with "cetacean", the word experts use - herd is roughly as frequent as pod. Anyway, the point being that you can herd a herd of something, but it`s kind of difficult to herd a school, or even a pod.