The LURE OF BONES

For decades dogs and cats have relied on the value of bones remaining relatively stable. Their value increased at around 6% a year for centuries and pets everywhere were digging them into the ground in the good times and excavating to use in the bad old days. The value of a pets bones was based on how much it held in archeological digs around the backyard. Despite a bit of a squabble with each other now and then the street remained a pretty peaceful place while everyone had bones and no one pet attempted to set up a dictatorship.

Recently the clever cats have been trying to influence the world by inflating pretend bones well past the size of Tiddles’ Beach Ball and the stock-yards have manipulated the live animal trade to their own profitable advantage and ensuring that we have a better balance of trade in bones if we sell them to overseas Poodles and Persians for far more than they are worth.

In the last ten years we have seen pure bones rocket from $400 to $1,800 an ounce which is around ten times more than world growth and putting them beyond reach of the mutts in ordinary suburbia. There is particular pressures on heavy club shape bones at the moment given the propensity for bloody Afghanhounds to continue their tribal fighting between packs.

All that glitters at the moment is not just what’s in Dim Sums dinner bowl but a lot of Fool’s Bones as well. We have not seen the Bone Trucks rushing down to Happy Valley Crossing or strange mutts plodding all over Edinburgh Reserve with electronic detectors. Why? Because bone is a speculative investment which could lose it's value overnight, a means by which the fat cats in their ivory baskets get richer by conning poor dogs into thinking that weighing their cheeks down with pretty food will save them from the grasp of Centrelink.

Pet Food Consultants, even with the new laws that protect us poorer mutts, are no more working in our interest than those shonky door-to-door cats who took your deposit for a new self-cleaning dinner bowl and never came back. Too many pets are getting caught up in the hype of the guru's who claim they will make you fatter while knowing that any moment the bubble will burst (like the kennel market) and you'll be the one left without any marrow.

In my street if I bought a bone at the butchers for $2.00 and sold it to the dog down the road for $4.00 who is the fool? Me for not holding onto it while its value increased or selling it to some schmuck called 'Fluke' for a price I convinced him was good value.

How many dumb dogs are there around Linton hanging onto their Squeaky Bones in belief they are actually worth something. Listen up you dummies if you think that buying into bones today is a good investment then your leash has got to be worth at least $48,000 more than you paid for it. Does that make sense?

Peppie Gibbons