In Which Nell DOESN'T Move to London
As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, it’s always disconcerting to run into photos of our dogs on other websites.
In a few cases, the site owners have given us semi plausible reasons – site designers who have used photos they found via image searches, relatives who did the sites for free and used pictures from wherever. None of these excuses really excuse using the images of another persons dogs to promote your own kennel, but they’re at least not intentionally misleading.
In the most recent case I’ve been informed of (thanks to Rumble’s mom Jennifer), the same can’t be said. There’s really no way to fob off claiming that a full grown, adult bitch you’ve never met ‘accidentally’ ended up listed as a dog you’ve sold to another home. The only possible excuse I can think of goes something like “Hey, I think that dog is pretty. If I put a picture of her on our website, people will think we breed pretty dogs, too”.
In this case, the photo was stolen from this set on Flickr, specifically this photo in particular. Here’s the entire set in slideshow form, so you can see the photo in context with the other ones in the series.
The nice people over at Aurora French Bulldogs, however, are claiming that Penelope is actually Parsha, and that she was sold to “Lisa in London”. This would come as a great surprise to Penelope, since she’s currently sitting on top of the puppy’s head while she yoinks the nylabone Heart had been peacefully chewing.
Here’s a screen cap of “Parsha”, on their “In New Homes” page. Click to view full sized, or see it in real time here.
Again, I can’t really imagine what the marketing strategy is behind these sorts of rash decisions. Aurora isn’t really at that far away from Mount Forest, meaning that there’s a good chance that anyone who stumbles onto the web site for Aurora will also stumble onto mine. Once there, ten seconds clicking brings you to Penelope’s page, where sits the same photo, front and center. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at this kind of stupidity, from a kennel that proudly announces ‘Christmas Puppies Available’.
I’ve emailed Aurora, asking them if they can put me in touch with “Lisa and Parsha”, but I haven’t received an answer yet. Heart, in the meantime, has suggested that perhaps a change of scenery would do her Auntie Nell a world of good.