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April Fools! Dogster Is Back, and We Weren’t the Only Ones Who Pulled a Pet-Centric Prank

Trupanion, Groupon, Ikea, Red Box, ThinkGeek, Hulu, Petco, and Doc-Send did, too!

By Dogster

, April 2, 2015

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Yesterday, we became, for one glorious day, Rockster. We covered pet rocks instead of dogs and cats. We had fun on April Fools’ Day, basically. Here are how many ways we had fun:

The folks at Catster also had some fun. Here’s what they did:

We were busy! We went in whole hog. Some people liked that (“This is hilarious!” we saw here and there on our Facebook page), but others did not. “I know it’s sarcasm, but it makes light of the hard and wonderful work rescues do,” one reader wrote about this story. “The effort for this silly article would be better spent writing something that would help a rescue place a dog.”

She is not without a point. That was a tremendously silly story.

We weren’t alone, however, in being silly on April 1. We saw plenty of other sites having fun with dogs and cats. Pet insurance company Trupanion, for one, announced it was launching the first-ever dating app solely for dogs and cats — Sniffable. “A fun, free way for dogs to make a quick date at the dog park or cats to finally meet face to face, rather than gazing from the living room window ledge,” says the company.

Groupon waded into to the fray with Grøüber, a “revolutionary new car service with feline drivers that provides people with affordable transportation to their Groupon deals.” How does the cat drive? Simple: Grøüber uses cars with GPS-guided lasers, and the cat drives by staying “relentlessly focused on the red laser emitting from the front of the vehicle that keeps the car on track to its intended destination.”

Never to be undersold, IKEA released the cat-proof sofa KÄT, “a sofa/cat scratcher hybrid that is designed specifically for pet-loving people,” according to Apartment Therapy. What does that mean? It’s made of cardboard! Look:

Also, doc-sending tech company DocSend had fun with its DocSend Dachshund Delivery, in which a Dachshund delivers document the old-fashioned way — he walks them over. All you do is roll up your doc, secure it to the Dachshund, and send him on his way with a little pat. Watch:

From ThinkGeek, we had a thing that should go into mass production immediately: the Voltron Cat Condo — “almost 6 feet of sci-fi magnificence for you and your cats.” A thing like this comes with a proper legend, which we’ll just repeat nearly in full:

From days of long ago, from uncharted regions of the universe, comes a legend; the legend of Voltron, Defender of the Universe, a mighty cat condo, loved by good, feared by evil. As Voltron’s legend grew, peace settled across the galaxy. On Planet Earth, a Galaxy Alliance was formed. Together with the good pets of the solar system, they maintained peace throughout the universe, until a new horrible menace threatened the galaxy: stale kibble.

There’s much more, all of it brilliant, but you have to see this thing first:

And there’s a video to boot:

Hulu gets into the action with its Premuim Pet Purrrrgramming, featuring a slate of shows about animals, like The Bark, Clawed City, The Mew, The Real Pugs of Portland, and Bone Appetit. Each comes with a tiny teaser.

Petco made us extremely happy with its selfie stick for dogs and cats, which are activated by barks and meows and send photos directly to social networks. Doesn’t it sell this already?

Redbox got into the action with Petbox. Instead of the big red box sitting outside convenience stores, there’s a little red box. In it are movies for dogs and cats. Kudos to Redbox for some strong work with Photoshop:

That’s it for us. Did you notice any good April Fools’ jokes featuring pets? Let us know in the comments!

Did you see any good April Fools’ jokes? Tell us in the comments!

Once more, with feeling:

Tags: Humor

Dogster

Dogster is a dog magazine and dog website where dog lovers come together to get the latest expert advice about dog behavior, dog health, dog news and dog entertainment, plus a whole lot of adorable dog pics. Currently edited by Melissa Kauffman.

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