A Dog's Life: Luxury Goods for Pets

Image by: Lindsay Siu

Local businesses have found the next big consumer: She's got four legs, a tail, a floppy tongue and a taste for luxury. Luxury dog products are growing in popularity, and it doesn't end with a fancy collar

Coco Martin Del Campo may be one of the most spoiled three-year-olds you’ll ever meet. The little brunette spends her days dressed in designer duds carefully picked out every morning by her doting mother, who takes her shopping for new outfits two or three times a month. She gets as many treats as her heart desires, has her nails done every couple of weeks and sleeps curled up in bed with her parents every night.

Coco is a dog. And wherever her “mother,” 28-year-old Saskia Martin Del Campo, goes, you can be sure the teacup Chihuahua is never far behind. In fact, more than likely she’s tucked away in a designer bag slung over Martin Del Campo’s shoulder or at the end of a rhinestone-encrusted leash.

“Everything she has kind of accents what I have,” explains Martin Del Campo, a bubbly blonde real estate agent with Dexter Associates Realty, who has popped into Barking Babies, a Yaletown designer doggy-wear boutique. Coco perches in her arms, decked out in a black Juicy Couture tracksuit. “We sometimes dress accordingly. Today we didn’t because we were in a big rush and I’ve been working and she was lounging. So she’s in her loungewear and I’m in my workwear. But yeah, sometimes we both go out in our little black tracksuits.”

The dog eyes Martin Del Campo’s interviewer with suspicion, lips twitching to reveal a tiny but perfectly formed set of pointy teeth. The sound of a high-pitched growl fills the room.

“She’s very protective,” Martin Del Campo explains apologetically.

If there was any question that dogs are now first-class citizens, Trouble puts any doubts to rest. In August 2007, the white Maltese became the richest bitch in the world when her owner, “Queen of Mean” Leona Helmsley, passed away and bequeathed a $12-million inheritance to her devoted canine companion. (Money can’t buy happiness, though, even if you’re a dog; Trouble is now reported to be suffering death threats and living in hiding, under a new identity, with a 24-hour guard.)

And in April of last year, outrage grew across the globe when certain pet foods, including those manufactured by Ontario-based Menu Foods Income Fund, were found to contain wheat gluten from China tainted with melamine. The column inches dedicated to the deaths of beloved pets as a result of the toxic food far outweighed those documenting the subsequent execution of Zheng Xiaoyu, the head of China’s State Food and Drug Administration, on corruption charges.

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