Dog Cafes: Food + Dogs = Questionable

Yes, there is in fact a post about dogs from I HAVE CAT in your news feed or inbox today. I just couldn’t help myself when I heard about the latest crowd-funding trend: Raising money to open Dog Cafes in the USA.

A recent study by UC Berkeley suggests 39% of Americans like both dogs and cats so I figured at least some of you would find this of interest.

source: The Dog Cafe Indiegogo campaign page

While thinking of questions to ask the founders of Meow Parlour last month (I still need to do that write-up but you can get a peek by reading my post on CatChannel.com), a friend suggested I ask the co-founders if they thought a similar concept would work with dogs. I basically spat out my coffee, and needless to say did not ask the question.

My friend is obviously smarter than I am. Or more dog-friendly. Or perhaps just psychic. Let’s s go with psychic so I don’t feel so bad. Because lo-and-behold, as of January 2015 there are not one but two Indiegogo campaigns for Dog Cafes, one on each coast of course – Santa Monica and NYC.

To date, The Dog Cafe (that’s the actual name of the cafe) in LA has been getting the most press. At the very least I can say with confidence cat people must be more creative when it comes to naming their cafes. The proposed cafe in NYC would be called Dog Cafe (leave it to New Yorker’s to shorten an already to-the-point name).

Sarah Wolfgang

The cafe in LA is the brainchild of Sarah Wolfgang who lived in Korea and began volunteering at dog shelters at the young age of 14. While there she even re-homed an adorable puppy from a local meat market!

Ironically, or perhaps because of the dog meat consumption there, Korea is currently where several dog cafes already exist. If it comes to fruition, her vision is to have all dogs at the cafe be adoptable, and she’s working with rescues both locally and from Korea which I find quite commendable.

While I do like dogs (at least the ones that don’t smell “doggie” – I’ve even written about cats as my “gateway” into the animal kingdom), there’s something about the thought of dogs + food and dog poop + food I find, well, very unappealing.

Am I alone here? Not even the article in the food-focused website GrubStreet alludes to the potential grossness factor. Even Sarah Wolfgang herself must find something a tad odd about it. She can barely contain herself from laughing while describing her vision of “The Dog Cafe” in her Indiegogo video:

“…you will completely be surrounded by dogs, small (she’s trying not to laugh) big, quiet, crazy, quiet, crazy, young…all sorts of sorts of dogs…”

If you are so inclined you can watch the entire video below.

Sarah envisions a visit to the cafe like visiting a friend with lots of dogs. You just get to play with them and don’t have to worry about cleaning up the poop because they’ll take care of that (well, that’s a relief!).

Had I been her consultant on this campaign I would have suggested she avoid the topic of dog poop altogether. Why even raise the imagery of poo around food ever?!

I mean, do these photos from dog cafes in Korea make you want to eat there? And why do the people and dogs looks so bored? Maybe they were disappointed. I mean, if they call them “dog cafes” there…(I know, I’m bad but apparently it’s true!).

Not to mention dogs are admittedly piggish (sorry pigs) when it comes to their eating habits. And hardy picky, so your food may be the last thing you have to worry about protecting against ingestion!