The omens are clear: we are living in the End of Days. “What omens?” you ask. “War in Europe? Riots in the UK? The stock market crash?” God No! Nothing so ephemeral. Brace yourselves: D&G have launched a “perfume for dogs”.
The last time something like this happened, 2007, it didn’t end well.
Dolce and Gabbana’s Fefé is a bargain basement €99. For that your bestie can enjoy warm notes of “musk and sandalwood”. Knowing itself to be, “delicate, authentic and charismatic” it can look lesser dogs in the eye and say: “I am not a dog, I’m Fefé.”
D&G describes Fefé as an “olfactory masterpiece”. It is “approved by vets” and “enjoyed by dogs”. Its sleek green bottle is adorned with a 24-carat gold-plated paw.
Mind you an RSCCA spokesman agreed with very little of the above. They said strong scents inhibit a dog’s ability to smell and hence to communicate and interact with you, other dogs and their environment. They’d most likely also find it quite unpleasant.
“Party poopers,” said D&G, I’d imagine, “coming over here with your science and your inside, hard won, actual experience. Don’t you know market reaction has been positive — everyone has gone crazy at the announcement.”
Crazy: my thoughts exactly!
But it’s not crazy financially. Bloomberg predicts that the value of the US pet industry will increase from $320 billion today to $500 billion a year by 2030. And, interestingly, or maybe worryingly, in 2022 half a billion dollars was spent on pet Halloween costumes alone.
So why should this worry you? Well, let me bring you back to 2007. We were about to buy a house. I was just thinking it was “crazy expensive” when I met a friend who had just opened a dog-walking business.
He’d also bought a new van emblazoned with his dog-walking logo. “The banks are throwing money at me,” he said and he couldn’t keep up with demand. Irish people in 2007 did not want to walk their own dogs. “Crazy,” I thought, again.
Then I read that Harrods had announced a new “fragrance for dogs” called Sexy Beast. I wondered how long it would take for it to be reviewed in my then favourite magazine, The New York Dog.
It was the brainchild of Irish publishers, John Ryan and Michael Sheridan. Possibly inspired by a Vanity Fair article that had described dogs as “a completely neglected demographic” they had stepped into the breach.
And what a breach it was. With articles such as Ten Best Walks in Manhattan and How to Keep a Dog in a Custody Battle it was a magazine whose time had come. Complete with dog horoscopes, obituaries, dieting tips and pop psychology advice it ran from 2004 to, well, 2007.
Every two months $4.95 bought you 96 glossy pages of your best friend’s needs and requirements. In a country where 50 per cent of Americans believed that their dogs knew them better than anyone else, the publishers hoped that The New York Dog would soon be as essential as Vogue or Cosmo.
Then the economies of the world crashed. It was a harsh reality reset in which dogs were exposed as both illiterate and smelly. As for my friend’s dog-walking business … Well, the least said.
But are we living in those times again? Well, apart from Fefédid you know there is a place called Dogwood Acres Pet Retreat at Chesapeake Bay in America where dogs can enjoy luxury suites, cuddle times, group play, mud baths, blueberry facials and a belly rub tuck-in at night?
Or that on the west coast a pet hotel franchise will pick your dog up in a Lamborghini? That there are dog bakeries, ice cream parlours and social clubs? Or that one San Francisco eatery offers a $75 dollar tasting menu for dogs?
Your dog can enjoy a birthday day out with friends in a sea of toys, a bubble machine and tubs of plastic balls . There is also Dog TV, a pay TV service for dogs that are “stuck at home”.
Scarily, websites are now advertising longevity drugs for dogs. “When you adopt a dog, you’re adopting future heartbreak” they say. Wouldn’t you want your dog to have that “one extra year”? Gulp!
This is all crazy and the last time my crazy reading was this high was 2007. If that sounds like too much crazy remember this: “I am not a dog, I am Fefé.”
