Well... it seems the story was just a practical joke on us by the japanese :)
The Sydney Morning Herald put up an error message. The New York Times has this:

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/like-herding-poodles-and-sheep/

But by far, the best pic was here:

http://ktla.trb.com/news/ktla-poodlescam,0,3319027.story?coll=ktla-news-2