Almost French - the dog cult in Paris

After a year or so of living in France, Turnbull decides to buy a dog as a companion and a help to keep fit. However, once she made her purchase, she realised that there is a huge discrepancy between her notion of "a dog's life" and those of many French dog owners.

In a nutshell, for these people dogs are the new accessories. They got tired of wearing necklaces or brooches, so they're using dogs instead. They go with them to dog grooming salons where the dogs receive haircuts and pedicures (!) for extortionate prices.

While browsing the web, curious to find out more about this bizarre new hobby of the human race, I was stupefied by the sheer magnitude of links about dog grooming salons. To cap it all, I've even found an article on dogs hitting the catwalk in canine couture. (!!!) Can the world get more queer than that.

I mean, just thinking about all the procedures such dogs must go through makes me feel queasy. It must be a devastating ordeal for a dog to endure a pedicure or a fashion show and I feel increasingly sorry for such dogs.

What ever happened to the "good, old days" when dogs were seen as what they are- animals. Accordingly, they could run around freely, pee on any tree they found smelled compelling or roll in the freshly cut grass to their heart's content. In other words, they really were living a genuine "dog's life".

Today, alas, the only purpose of many of them is just to compensate for the unfulfilled lives of their owners and act as a makeshift for something the owner doesn't have.

I sincerely hope that such owners will sooner rather than later realise that they are doing their dogs a disservice by torturing them like that. I seriously doubt that any human would find it enjoyable to be treated like that, so maybe the only way to galvanise people who treat their dogs in such a fashion is to treat them likewise.

If nothing changes, however, then all the described above is proof positive that we are living in a perverted world which will soon go to hell in a handbasket.

If you wish to read about the dog fashion shows, visit:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7793572/