(Via Metro.co.uk, via nom-de-grr): Dog owners ‘fleeced’ in poodle scam

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.

Maiko Kawakami, who starred in the Japanese thriller Violent Cop, showed photographs of her pet on a television talk show only to be told it wasn’t a dog - but was in fact a lamb.

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.

‘We launched an investigation after we were made aware that a company was selling sheep as poodles,’ a police spokesman told The Sun.

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

‘The sheep are believed to have been imported from overseas - Britain and Australia.’

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.

The company, which translates as Poodles as Pets, sold the ‘poodles’ for £630, about half the cost of a normal poodle but is now understood to have been shut down.

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Mary had a little poodle,
Little lamb, little poodle,
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fur was white as snow

And everywhere that Mary went,
Mary went, Mary went,
Everywhere that Mary went
The poodle was sure to go

It didn’t bark,
Didn’t bark, didn’t bark
But Mary had a leash,
And that lamb was taken for walks.

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I’m sorry how do you mistake a LAMB for a POODLE?

One is a LAMB, see? The other would be a POODLE. One is a dog, the other is a sheep. Sheep bleat! They baa! They don’t bark! I mean it took this woman going “Well it doesn’t bark or eat dog food at all but I’m not sure” and telling it as a funny story and then showing pictures to work that one out? And then, after that, tons of other people came forward, realizing their mistake? What the fuck?

POODLE.

LAMB.

They are not the same!