No kids? No problem - plenty of goodies here to spoil your fluffy pets

Friday, Sept. 22, 2006 | 7:30 a.m.

Now I'm not dumb but I can't understand why she should walk like a dog but talk like a man.

Lola.

But that sounded like what the publicist was promising when she called to offer an interview with a 3-year-old Pomeranian named, she insisted, Lola in Laguna. (Possibly this is because there's a large Doberman named Lola at the heart of Lola Limited, an Arizona-based dog collar manufacturer. The publicist denied this.)

Lola, the one from the stinking-rich seaside city in Southern California, will appear in "Off the Leash," a Lifetime network reality show about showbiz dogs. She's also coming to the SuperZoo, the pet industry trade show at Mandalay Bay (still running today), to hawk crystal jewelry and hair products for dogs. And available for an interview.

But Lola - who looks like the love child of a raccoon and a teddy bear, a look that drew crowds of cooing humans - did not speak. She was haughty: primped and publicity-hungry but distant - the Paris Hilton of pooches. She barely sniffed a proffered hand.

Her owners were up for speaking, though.

"This is a child to us," said Ron Hudson, a contractor who says Lola likes to ride in what he called "daddy's Lamborghini." "You know how women who don't have kids make dogs their surrogate children?" Hudson asked. "That's what this is."

His wife, who cradled Lola in her arms, is Melissa, a long, cool woman in a split V-neck dress with an ageless Southern California beauty.

"I want to come back as Lola," she said. "I want to be that cute."

And at last, when she was down on the ground posing for photos, Lola did speak.

Another dog, maybe a Jack Russell terrier, came over wagging its tail. Lola reared up like the fluff ball of doom and snarled like mistreated Velcro before taking off after the other dog, slapping her paws in the air like an enraged starlet and bearing her adorable, needlelike fangs.

Calm was restored only when she was back in mommy's arms.

"She gets territorial," Melissa Hudson said blithely. "Lola wants to be the star."

Tough sell

Mike Reinwald looks down at the cat - fake-carved on the hollow fake rock resting on the fake grass - and sighs.

"It's the cat," he says. "People walk by and see the cat and go, 'Ohhh.' No one wants to think about their pet being dead. But everybody's got to die, even pets."

Reinwald's company, Rock & Water Creations, makes fake rocks with plastic urns inside them and memorial plaques on top. The monuments have been popular for humans in gardens and cemeteries, but this is Mike's first pet convention. He says he has some leads but is still feeling the market out.

"They spend more money on pets than they do on kids. So you'd think?" he says. "But no."

Also, the dogs keep sniffing the fake grass.

Spotted

Shirts for dogs reading, "I Didn't Ask To Be a Princess," "Stud," "Bitches Love Me, Mailmen Fear Me," and "Does This Shirt Make Me Look Fat?"

$13.50 17.50, all sizes. Pet Tease of El Cajon, Calif. www.pettease.com.

Not spotted

Shirts, pants, hats or clothes of any kind for cats.

Overheard

"Hey! Bugs!" - salesman's pitch for Bug Box, which holds live crickets for reptiles.