The Dog Shopper

“What to do when you can’t face going to the shops? Send someone else? For a dog owner in China, the solution was to train his pooch to go shopping for him. Meet Deng Deng: The one-year-old sheepdog who lives with his owner, Zhang Tiegang in Changsha, southern China. Despite Tiegang being a sprightly 32-years-of-age, he has trained Deng Deng to go to the shop, pick out his food and carry it all the way home for him. Deng Deng is kitted out with a specially made harness, which comes equipped with two bags where the pup can carry his owner’s shopping. Although the arrangement would seem to be beneficial for one side only, Tiegang claims that his dog is happy too. Tiegang said: ‘He just loves to carry things. He started by begging to carry things home in his mouth so I built a little saddle for him and attached some shopping bags. ‘He’s so good at it now that I can just send him to the shop with some money and a list in one of his bags and he comes home with the food and the change.”