Black Market for Pet Organs

The Canis Mentus or commonly knows as the Stitch Hound is targeted by dog snatchers.

Part 1: The Victims

The Pucknells are missing their dog, Augusta

Every morning, Sandra and Dave Pucknel walked their family dog Augusta. The morning ritual would normally continue Augusta running into Sasha, their son's, room with a wake-up face-lick. Mornings are now different in the Pucknel house. Augusta has gone missing. After weeks of searching and postering, the Pucknels have resigned to the reality that their dog may be gone forever. This is a sad reality for a lot of families whose beloved family pets have suspiciously disappeared.

"We believe this to be a part of a wide crime and we're treating it as a dog-napping for two reasons" says Constable Okabe, leading the investigation. "Firstly, the dog went missing from the Pucknel's private property. Augusta had access to a private enclosed backyard through the kitchen dog door. There's no way he could have escape without assistance." This is also a suspicious disappearance since it also fits into the trend of other missing pets: healthy young dog that disappeared mysteriously from its home and is of this particular breed. According to Constable Okabe there have been numerous pet disappearances in the past year, and especially for that breed of dog, the Canis Mentus, or commonly known as the Stitch Hound.

The Stitch Hounds are known in the dog organ black market as the Golden Breed.  According to Veterinarian Evan Castelli, Their blood type is ideal for a safer donation of organs with the least number of complications.  The black market operators have been praying on these dogs which are common family pets.  They are also the ideal pet, as a medium sized dog that doesn't shed and is friendly with people, particularly with small children.  It also makes them easier to catch since they tend not to put up a fight.  There is reason to believe that this is an international problem. 

Although most of the crime has been seen in dogs, there is a concern that it will expand into other pets.  Tomorrow we will take a look at the other side with an interview from an ex-operative in the black market for pet organs.

QR Codes for the Masses

By: Abigale worrall 8:12PM, nOV 1, 2007

Typical QR code

New York likes to think that it is on the cutting edge of everything. We are the hippest kids on the international block with our fashion houses, artists, musicians and advertising right? Well maybe not. In many ways we lag behind the cutting edge technology that is being used everywhere. Advertisers in Japan, Europe and even in Canada are jumping ahead of us with QR codes. QR codes are two dimensional codes that encrypt information that can be read by a phone equipped with the correct technology.

Imagine driving past a house that is for sale. You don't have time to stop and find out the details so you just use your phone to take a photo of the bill board. With just that one click you are now looking at the asking price and photographs of all of the rooms. In Japan this is the reality. QR codes appear everywhere from billboards to the wrapper on your big-mac.

So why are we Americans lagging behind with this technology? In Britain advertising companies have started pushing the QR codes onto the market. Art galleries, DVD releases, even sports reports have used QR codes in their campaigns. Vespa launched their last Toronto campaign using QR codes and the stage is set for this to continue.  

One of the reasons that these codes haven't entered the advertising arena here in the US is that the phone needs to be equipped with decoding technology which comes as standard on a Japanese phone but is only on very few of the latest phones in North America. Enter Evan Jones and Stitch Media, a new media outfit based in Toronto.

"The problem is that there aren't that many phones on the market in North America that have the technology to read these codes." Says Jones "The solution is to farm out the technology. We set up a central computer that can read the codes. The users text the number into our computer which reads the code and sends the decoded message back to them."  

This could be the start of an advertising revolution. Codes on your Big Mac? You'll be seeing it soon.