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Sunday, June 12, 2011

Are Dogs The New McMansion?

On the front page of today's New York Times is an article titled, "For the Executive With Everything, a $230,000 Dog to Protect It" that details the training of what used to be known as guard dogs, now renamed "executive protection dogs", for the wealthy. The article features one dog in particular, a German Shepherd named Julia that recently sold for $230,000, and what she's trained to do. Although there are reports of trained protection dogs that have sold for upwards of $400,000, you can relax: most well-credentialed and trained dogs go for a mere $50,000. "When you compare the costs of a full-time bodyguard versus a dog, the dog makes a lot of sense,...and the dogs, unlike the bodyguard, can't be bought off," says one of the owners of Kraftwerk K9, a high end dog training business in Washington state. Read the full article here: www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/us/12dogs.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1307898059-fLZ5M3ZLQyUiOTt6kzik8A

It's interesting that the article described the typical buyer of such a highly trained protection dog as  a wealthy (obviously) businessman on his second family, who typically leaves his wife and small children alone in a 30,000 or so square foot mansion, while he's traveling on business.

Can any of you relate? Here are Bella and I guarding Parental Unit (from the sofa) of her combination office, TV room and exercise room.

9 comments:

Donna said...

Oh, goodness. My hooman adopted me from the shelter, and that's a much better way to help the critters! :)

Lucy-Fur, as typed by Dr. Liz said...

Uh, yeah. We're totally guard dogs. We bark at EVERY possible intruder - including those beings from other dimensions that no one but us can see. We're super helpful that way. And we sound WAY intimidating. (We're total marshmallows, BTW, but don't tell anyone - or the intruders might come bringing hamburgers, at what point Mom and Dad are on their own! Heehee.) Your own protectiveness is Most Impressive!

*kissey face*
-Fiona and Abby the Hippobottomus

Sagira said...

Keep up the great work of protecting. :)

Frankie Furter and Ernie said...

And Fiona and Abby the H. aren't kidding either..

You are doing a super duper job buddy.

HEY... what would you like fur me to bring to OUR picnic on the 25th?

Lola and also Franklin, too said...

Well, all I can say is that our humans got quite a bargain. I supervise Franklin's guard duties and and all we cost was donations to our respective shelters. (Mine was more.) I don't think that our mansion is quite that big, though. Perhaps if you count the whole yard, but math is not my thing. I do know it's a bit crowded in her sometimes.

NAK and The Residents of The Khottage Now With KhattleDog! said...

Mom is grumbling about khorporate greed - although she had another word in there -

Humans spend THAT whilst other humans are living on the streets -

Grrrrrr

Hugz&Khysses,
Khyra

Unknown said...

Keep up your good work, Bocci!

Mika and me are vigilant at home too!
~ Eva

Bella and Ollie said...

You two are doing a great job, but like us you give something that is infinitely more precious and that you cannot be trained for, and that is to love your family unconditionally.

Bocci said...

Oh, how beautiful, Bella and Ollie...and how true!

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