If you ever doubted the necessity of teaching basic biology and animal science…

THOUSANDS of Japanese have been swindled in a scam in which they were sold Australian and British sheep and told they were poodles.

Australia’s Herald Sun reports that a company called Poodles as Pets sold sheep as poodles, charging $1600 each… half the price of a real poodle in Japan.

The scam was uncovered when Japanese film star Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk-show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food. She was crestfallen when told it was a sheep…..One couple said they became suspicious when they took their “dog” to have its claws trimmed and were told it had hooves.

Just to check his response, I showed my 4 year old a few pictures of lambs and sheep and a few of poodles. He was able to identify all of them correctly — even the tricky ones…. “I see hooves, mommy”

He might have an advantage over your average japanese person as he’s seen plenty of dogs and sheep in his short life. But still. Wouldn’t you look at your dog’s claws before bringing it to the groomer for a clip?

Tags: biology, funny news, weird news, sheep, poodles

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 at 2:28 pm and is filed under Random Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.