Udupi: Two animal-lovers were keen on owning a British Bulldog. Only one of them was lucky enough to get it after paying a hefty sum. Maybe being a professional, he took enough care about the minute details of the procedures and formalities and other one may not have.
The first case was that of Alwyn Barnes of ‘Barnes Kennels’ in Gundibail here. The female canine which he received last week is eighty days old. In normal pattern, it is expected to grow up to 26 inches in length and 16 inches in height.
Barnes has been in kennel business for about 13 years now and has a stock of eighteen canines of foreign breed.
The bulldog arrived from Scotland by air in Mumbai on Friday and was flown to Mangaluru on Saturday. It was received with tender and loving care by Barnes at the airport and taken to Udupi in his car.
The Bulldog that Barnes imported
Tejas Kamath, son of Gurudutt and Nirmala Kamath of Mallikatte in Mangaluru, who is a student of I year BBM at Sikkim-Manipal University, immediately struck a deal with Barnes and bought it at a whopping price of Rs 1.09 lakh.
There seem to be a very few bulldogs reared at home as pets around Mangaluru. They turn up only at kennel shows held in the city.
On the other hand, there is the bizarre story of a teacher from Yagati in Chikkamagaluru district, who too was keen on owning a bulldog, but got cheated in an online deal.
Gopi, while surfing the Net, recently came across an advertisement offering a British Bulldog at Rs 29,000 which sounded dirt cheap to him. When he indicated his acceptance of the offer, the person who had put up the ad called him up and asked him to credit the full amount to a given bank account.
A day after the amount was credited, the person informed him that since the canine had to be airflown, the expenses and the insurance premium would come up to Rs 30,000 which had to be paid immediately.
Gopi complied with it. Two days later, the same person called him again and told hm that since the customs officials at the Delhi airport were likely to confiscate the animal and hence an amount of Rs 37,000 had to be paid. Otherwise, there would be a delay of six months.
A worried Gopi remitted that amount also, since he was tricked into believing that once the customs clearance was received, the amounts of Rs 30,000 on premium and Rs 37,000 paid for customs would be refunded to him. In total he remitted Rs 96,000.
When there was no response for two or three days, he called up the contact number, which has since been responding with ‘switched off’ message.
It was only then that Gopi realized that all that promise of a bulldog was all bull and no dog. Last Friday, he filed a complaint at the Yagati police station regarding the con job. The police are investigating the case.