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An animal rights charity has warned people against buying “dog perfume” for their companion animals.
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Italian luxury fashion brand Dolce & Gabbana recently unveiled “Fefé,” a scent for dogs that costs €99 (USD $109) per bottle. The fragrance is named after cofounder Domenico Dolce’s famous companion dog. The alcohol-free scented mist for dogs is described as “delicate, authentic, charismatic” in an advertising campaign.
But PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk, who is the author of book Let’s Have a Dog Party, told Plant Based News that perfumes can be hugely distressing for dogs due to their reliance on their sense of smell. “Dogs have an extraordinarily sensitive sense of smell – they have hundreds of millions more receptors in their nostrils and can smell 10,000 to 100,000 times better than humans – and can pick up scents a mile away, so squirting them with a fragrance designed to please humans, as this is, can upset them greatly,” she said.
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Newkirk added that, due to the fact dogs are unable to shake it off, the perfume scent can “cause them irritation and distress and interfere with their ability to detect other smells in their environment and communicate with other animals they encounter.”
“PETA advises dog guardians never to apply any scented sprays to their animal companions and reminds people to consider that our dogs love us just as we are – and we should extend the same courtesy to them,” she added.
Demand for dog perfume
There are a number of dog perfumes already on the market. They can be found around the world in “pet” stores, groomers, and even the British Royal Estate of Sandringham’s online store.
According to Dolce & Gabbana, the market has “reacted well” to the latest launch. “Everyone went crazy at the announcement,” Stefano Gabbana, the company’s other cofounder, told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The brand has also claimed that the perfume is “vet approved” and certified by an Italian companion animal safety company named Safe Pet Cosmetics.
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