While my chihuahua gently quacks

“When I get out of this thing, you’d better sleep with one eye open. You’re dead, you hear me? DEAD.”

Vicious, volatile lap dog with no impulse control whatsoever? No I don’t mean you, dear reader, although if the shoe fits you can certainly wear it. What I meant is: does your precious fur baby need a muzzle sometimes, but every time you put it on him you can’t help thinking about that BDSM website you “accidentally” clicked on at work last month? Japan has the answer to many problems, including a great many problems that aren’t really problems. Thus, behold the OPPO Quack. Muzzle your dog while also humiliating them by making it appear they’re wearing a duck’s bill: Bobu’s your weird Japanese uncle and his duck-billed dachshund.

It also comes in a chocolate colour which is fine because some dog’s faces are roughly this colour, and in a disturbing fleshy pink that’s actually a bit too much like a dog’s erect penis, always a nightmarish sight. Definitely not something anybody wants to be reminded of at all, let alone colour-coordinating accessories with them.

“As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods. They make us wear duck faces for their sport.”

While we’re in this psychosexual territory, we could also speculate that the apparent Japanese propensity to cartoonise, minimise and kawaii-ify the mouth (along with its obsessive shadow siblings in Japanese anime, manga and porn: the gag and the tentacle or tube in the mouth) perhaps erupts from the national subconscious in some way that’s related to the prevailing cultural norm of honne (本音, true feelings or wishes) being firmly subordinate to tatemae (建前, the façade enforced for the sake of society’s harmony); that one should only open one’s mouth to say something nice– or at least, say something non-confrontational– or metaphorically gag oneself and say nothing at all.

Or you could just look at more pictures of little dogs looking ridiculous at the gallery on OPPO’s site and here, below.

OPPO‘s company name is a Japlish mashup of optimistic and positive, and well… you’d have to be, wouldn’t you? The main alternative is facing the horrifying fact that you’re wasting the best years of your life on making rubber duck faces for dogs. The same company also markets a marginally less odd sort of turtle shell thing for cats to sleep in. This one needs work, though. It hardly looks like a disturbing cat-turtle hybrid at all, and the cat can opt out and leave at any time. Come on.

“You’ll find emancipation documents on your desk, awaiting your signature. Any further communication should take place via my appointed legal representatives.”

Is anyone else unfortunate enough to remember ‘Howard the Duck’? This picture is sort of Howard the Duck plus ‘Gremlins’ It’s an ongoing mystery to me that George Lucas could throw all his weight behind pieces of shit like ‘Howard the Duck’ and ‘Willow’, and yet everybody still acted surprised when the Star Wars prequels and Indiana Jones & the Plot Devices of Confusion turned out to be steaming turds as well. Note also the flying duck-billed dog in the top left of this photo. Why?

“He turns to me and says: Why so serious? Comes at me with the knife. WHY SO SERIOUS? He sticks the blade in my mouth: Let’s put a smile on that face.”