« An Indian Guantanamo? :+: It ain’t over… »

Animal Rights

India’s favorite pooch generates controversy

By: Santosh :+: Under: Animal Rights
On: ⋅ May 25, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
Discuss in our off-topic forums

Looks like you are new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I love dogs and so this story about India’s favorite kutta(Hindi for dog) makes the cut. [The Age]

Dog days are here for India’s favorite pooch
img: via The Age

Those who live in India or have been there in the last couple of years must be familiar with the Vodafone pug.

A TV advertisement promoting the mobile phone company featuring the dog has captivated millions of Indians.

Sales of pug puppies have soared as children, smitten by scenes showing a lovable pug playing affectionately with a pretty little girl, have forced their parents to buy one for them too.

And pugs are a great choice for urban Indians, both in India and abroad. They are indoor dogs, great companions to humans and easily trained. However, depending on the way you look at it, those points are shortcomings also. Because they’re bred to be indoor, outside activity and hot weather can quickly dehydrate them, they are great companions but also extremely needy for attention and because they’re such smart dogs, they can be quite stubborn if they choose to.

The controversy focuses on one of these shortcomings - having a pug perform rigorous activity outdoors.

The charge is cruelty. In the commercial, after helping the girl fish and lick stamps, the pug suddenly realises that she has gone to school without her school tie. He runs down the road chasing the bus with the tie in his mouth.

“The pet dog was made to run, gallop and chase the school van for a long time on a public road. Thereby, the dog was made to undergo severe pain and suffering due to the exhaustion,” the board says in a legal petition.

In case you were wondering, that is a valid complain of animal cruelty. Pugs have extremely small snouts and cannot perform vigorous activities like running and jumping for long periods of time in hot conditions.

Here’s the video of the Vodafone commercial with the pug helping the little girl. [link]

It’s hard to tell from the video regarding the amount of physical activity this pug was made to perform and the length of time of the activity. One can assume there were multiple takes but that’s not to say they were not spread across multiple days. You be the judge.

If you haven’t go to YouTube.com and search for “Vodafone Pug” to see all the cute pug commercials that have taken India by storm.

« An Indian Guantanamo? :+: It ain’t over… »
Discuss in our off-topic forums