Why buy a dog when you can lease one?
The idea of going down the street or across town or to the dog pound to get a furry friend has gone out of style. Now and especially with the plague, people “had to have designer pets.” You know the cutest little Pekingese or the biggest Lab. So we have PetSmart and other gigantic stores and the industry to support these substitute children. The price of a puppy went from $20 to $2000 or more. Not everyone had the purchase price for the designer dog and all the extra added charges like shots, training and equipment for the dog beside the food. So many dog breeders and the companies selling the dog at retail offered to finance the purchase to make the sale and then make additional money on the payments stretched out for years. The buyer usually did not read the agreement and did not realize until later that they were not buying a dog with a loan, but they had agreed to lease the dog from the provider who transferred the dog’s ownership to the finance company.
So once the puppy was happy in their home and they invested all the added money for equipment and the pet was a part of their family, the bills kept on coming. When the dog masters wanted to pay off the “loan” or stop the payments they found out they did not own the dog and unless the payments kept coming at the agreed term or they paid a surrender fee, the dog would be repossessed and sold to someone else. Quite a racket. The big news is that Massachusetts sued one of the biggest dog leasing companies and Monterey Financial Services LLC will stop collecting on active leases, cancel about $700,000 in outstanding consumer debt on 211 dog leases — about $3,300 owed per lease — and will transfer full ownership of the dogs to their Massachusetts owners, authorities said. Further, the company agreed to pay another $200,000 as a penalty to the court. The attorney general’s office learned of Monterey’s dog leasing practices while it was investigating another financial company, Nevada-based Credova Financial, which agreed to waive more than $126,000 in consumer debt. The ASPCA estimated that about 25-30% of its pet sales at the time involved leases. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Indiana, New Jersey, and Washington have also outlawed the practice, according to the ASPCA. Though the company owned dog leases and agreed to turn over ownership of those leases to pet owners as part of the settlement, they have not repossessed any pets.
Breaking my lease
I remember sitting once in psychology class learning about Pavlov thinking “those stupid dogs.”
And then the bell rang and we all had lunch.
Dogs don’t know how to use an MRI machine.
But catscan.
The World Health Organization announced that dogs cannot contract COVID-19.
Dogs previously held in quarantine can now be released. To be clear, WHO let the dogs out.
Why did the homeless man move into an apartment?
He was thinking outside the box.
April 21st Birthdays
1926 – Queen Elizabeth, 1984 – Ashley Peldon, 1971 – Samantha Druce, 1958 – Andie MacDowell
1971 – Tony Danza, 1980 – James McAvoy, 1981 – Tony Romo, 1985 – Alphonso McAuley