Oddities shop sells dead puppies for Valentine's Day

Not everyone wants a box of chocolates for Valentine's Day.

Some might prefer, say, a dead puppy preserved in a jar.

Jason Haack, owner of Bonez by Dezign Custom Lamps and More, said the romance-themed weekend brought several customers into his Sioux Falls oddities shop.

"You've got to have a little bit of a morbid side to you," Haack said, as he sat in the corner of his shop between a shelf of bones and a wall of taxidermied animals.

The business started in the back room of his mother's flower shop at 1742 S. Cliff Ave., just north of 26th Street. In the last year he's expanded to the front room with a section of collectibles for sale in one area of the shop.

Haack sells various animal bones, skulls and skeletons. He also has a shelf of wet specimens, meaning animals preserved in jars.

That's where the puppies are kept, in jars that look like in another life they could have held jam.

The puppies come from different breeders. They are all stillborn. None of them lived outside the womb, and none of them were killed for purposes of making collectors items.

"It's never been somebody's baby," Haack's mother Jodie Haack said.

But Haack has seen his fair share of criticism. When he posted a picture on Facebook of the puppies in jars, he received death threats, his mother said.

He saw another wave of criticism on social media after he posted a Valentine's ad for the puppies. Some commenters raised question as to the legality of Haack's operation.

It's all legal, though, Haack said.

"Just because somebody doesn't like it doesn't mean it's wrong or illegal," Haack said.

Customer Ashely Nielson became interested in collecting wet specimens after seeing the TV show "Oddities." She has purchased a puppy, a kitten, a bat and a scorpion from Haack's shop.

She's also heard people call her hobby "weird" or "gross," but she replies, "To each their own."

"I don't think people should judge other people's hobbies and what they like," Nielson said.

Nielson views her collection as a chance to give love and attention to these animals who never had a chance at life.

She said she would love to receive a wet specimen for Valentine's Day.

"That would be better to me than roses or jewelry or anything like that."