June Dogtopia Loot Crate Pets Fail

Today our June Loot Pets box from Loot Crate arrived...and I intend to send it right back to them. Apparently they've abandoned the entire concept of a geeky dog subscription box, because this month's theme is 'dogs'. It's full of dog stuff that dogs like....just like every other dog subscription box out there.

I was hoping they'd at least attempt to make up for last month's fail crate. Nope. We received: A pair of matching shirts that say "Dogtopia" and have pictures of dogs on them, some dog treats, a stuffed hot dog toy, and a charm shaped like a fire hydrant. That's right, not one remotely geeky item in the entire box. I emailed them to ask WTF. This is the response I received:

"As with all of our crates we announce themes for the month. This month the theme was DOGTOPIA. There were no extra franchises advertized on this month, stating it was going to be centered around the dogs themselves. Apologies if you didn't connect with the crate this month."

Apparently we were all supposed to catch on that "Dogtopia" meant "regular ordinary dog stuff". Their Facebook post described it as "A dog's favorite franchises". I guess they consider fire hydrants and hot dogs to be franchises? "Dogtopia" is a word they invented specifically for this box, so making a shirt about it is weird and self-referential.  Like, if I wear it and someone asks about it, there's no explanation I can give because it means nothing at all. I suppose I could try to explain about Loot Crate and how this was their theme for June, but I will never find someone who will see my shirt and go "I get that reference!"

 Our first few Loot Pets boxes were amazing and wonderful. Last month's was a major disappointment, and this one is just insulting. Would they do a regular Loot Crate full of NFL merchandise because it's "America's favorite franchise"? I wouldn't have thought so before, but now I'm not actually sure. I liked Loot Crate because they were relentlessly geeky. I don't understand why they decided to change their entire premise and do regular dog boxes instead of geeky dog boxes, but after 'Dogtopia' I am no longer a subscriber.