Akademik

n.

Dog accessories and toys, particularly ones demonstrated and sold at in-home parties. [Blend of pup and Tupperware.] Also: Pupperware.

Most of us haven't seen a party with howling, drooling guests jumping on tables since our more dubious college days.

But the five guests at Melissa Rogers' Midtown home are supposed to behave inappropriately. They're dogs.

Basset hounds, to be precise, including Scarlet the mad licker, and Scooter, who's demonstrating his lung power. They're the beneficiaries of a "pupperware party"

— Rhonda Bodfield Bloom, "It's a pupperware party," The Arizona Star, October 2, 2005

Still, there McBride was, the canine equivalent of the Avon lady, demonstrating an array of high-end pet products to an enchanted audience of eight women and five dogs at a Pupperware party at the home of Karen Perjon in Philadelphia.

The newest twist in the $35 billion-a-year pet industry, such parties bring to the comfort of your living room $40 Tiara Hairpins for Tiny Dogs, $100 Dog-Tired Heated Beds with removable faux fleece and $165 Pet Strollers.

These in-home product pitches are the brainchild of Andrew Shure, who in 2003 founded Shure Pets, a Chicago-based direct-sales company that sells stuff for dogs, cats, ferrets, rabbits, birds and horses. Its consultants peddle the goods through the Internet and via Shure Pets’ slick catalogs, though home Pupperware parties are the most popular sales venues.

— Kristen A. Graham, "A fun way to shop for Fido," Philadelphia Inquirer, December 2, 2005

Dogpark.com even will arrange a six-night, off-season vacation in chien-loving Paris for the pet who has everything — who flies there with you in the passenger cabin of the Concorde. The trip costs $30,000 for two humans and one dog and includes several gifts such as a Deluxe Dog-on-the-Go Kit featuring Pupperware, Dish-a-Go-Go — you get the idea.

— Barbara Shea, "Pets Rights Flying High," Newsday, March 26, 2000

The word Pupperware™ is trademarked in the United States by OOH Pet Products.