Malls Welcomed Dogs. The Results Have Been Ruff.

NORWALK, Conn.—It was Weston Bear Marshall’s first time at the mall and he wasn’t up on his etiquette. Soon after arriving on Black Friday, the two-year-old lifted his leg and peed on an information sign.

“He’s marking his territory,” said Vincent Marshall, owner of the Old English sheepdog.

Malls are desperate to revive foot traffic after years of losing customers to e-commerce. That includes the four-footed kind, despite the occasional mishap.

“Not everyone makes it to the puppy-relief stations,” said Matthew Seebeck, senior general manager of the Norwalk, Conn., mall, called the SoNo Collection.

The mall’s doggie code of conduct, also known as the “pawlicy,” requires its furrier patrons to use the puppy facilities, which are equipped with patches of fake grass, plastic bags and paper towels. Owners who don’t follow the rules, which also require leashes, can be banned for up to a year. No one has been blacklisted yet, Mr. Seebeck said.

Weston’s human staff carried on with their shopping after his accident. The family posed for a photo with Santa and then lingered as shoppers came over to pet the 80-pound animal.

“If anyone’s nervous, he’ll win them over,” Mr. Marshall predicted. “He’s a very social dog. He’s thinking, ‘I want to introduce myself to all these people.’ That’s what is going through his doggie brain.”

Pacific Retail Capital Partners, which operates 22 malls in 12 states, has six pet-friendly centers and plans for a seventh next year, said Najla Kayyem, its executive vice president of marketing.

“People who have pets are a breed of their own and we want to be able to reach them,” she said.

The Eastridge Center in San Jose, Calif., has a Mini Cat Town, for playing with kittens up for adoption. At the Monroe Crossing Mall in Monroe, N.C., cats and bunnies on leashes scamper in for pet night with Santa, said marketing manager Wendi McCall. One shopper needed approval from Santa to bring a snake.

On Black Friday in 2021, two greyhounds busted loose from their owner at the SoNo Collection. “You could see the crowds of people parting as they ran up and down the escalator,” recalled Mr. Seebeck.

Another day at the same mall, a Great Dane took out a sweater display at the Altar’d State clothing chain. Earlier this year, a dog deposited a trail of poop outside H&M. Shoppers nearby barked at the owner to clean up after her pup, but she high-tailed it out, canine in tow.

The Rosedale Center in Roseville, Minn., for a time allowed dogs on Sunday mornings, but discontinued that. They overran the mall and left hair on garments, said Molly King, a manager there. “For every dog lover,” she added, “there is a dog not lover.”

Mike Lambrakis, of Tustin, Calif., lately has noticed more pooches while shopping. “I’ll be looking at clothing and suddenly there is a dog sniffing my leg,” said the 36-year-old financial adviser, who is allergic. “It makes it easier to justify shopping online.”

Ed Taylor, founder of the Worldwide Santa Claus Network said his members, who often play Kris Kringle at shopping centers, have been peed on, bitten and scratched. And he doesn’t mean by the children.

He has posed with goats, chickens, snakes and lizards at malls around the country, and a small lap dog once chomped on his finger. “He didn’t draw blood, but it was a shock,” said Mr. Taylor, who still enjoys seeing pets among shoppers.

The Foothills Mall in Maryville, Tenn., is pet friendly. Does it advertise that? Nope.

“If we did, then everyone would come with their animals and that would be more than we could handle,” said Tia Spires, the mall’s general manager.

Last month, Rod Morton, a 58-year-old advertising executive, was walking his goldendoodle Truly at the SoNo Collection mall in Connecticut. It was cold and rainy outside, with other challenges inside the mall.

The Nordstrom there offers complimentary puppuccinos, which are cups of whipped cream. Truly loves them—who wouldn’t?—but then races around on a sugar high, said Mr. Morton.

Another dog owner, Adam Bomberger, waited with his golden retriever Bailey outside of Aerie, where Mr. Bomberger’s girlfriend was shopping.

The store was too crowded for Bailey’s liking, according to Mr. Bomberger, a 34-year-old media technology specialist. He also has to steer Bailey away from stores that sell candles because the pup likes to lick the scented wax.

Nearby, Paisley and Bentley, both Pomeranians, were yapping and yipping like canine carolers. “They get excited,” explained Michael Lopez, a 22-year-old student at Sacred Heart University who was shopping with his girlfriend Valerie Navas, a 21-year-old nursing student.

Ms. Navas said the dogs tinkle on the rug almost every time they come to the mall. “They think the rug is a huge pee mat,” she said.

The marketplace has spoken and, at least for now, it’s showing preference for hybrids and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) over battery electrics. That makes Toyota’s foot dragging on EVs (and full speed ahead on hybrids) look fairly wise, though the timeline along a bumpy road still gets us to full electrification by 2035.

Italian supercar producer Lamborghini, in business since 1963, is also proceeding, incrementally, toward battery power. In an interview, Federico Foschini , Lamborghini’s chief global marketing and sales officer, talked about the new Urus SE plug-in hybrid the company showed at its lounge in New York on Monday.

The Urus SE interior gets a larger centre screen and other updates.
Lamborghini

The Urus SE SUV will sell for US$258,000 in the U.S. (the company’s biggest market) when it goes on sale internationally in the first quarter of 2025, Foschini says.

“We’re using the contribution from the electric motor and battery to not only lower emissions but also to boost performance,” he says. “Next year, all three of our models [the others are the Revuelto, a PHEV from launch, and the continuation of the Huracán] will be available as PHEVs.”

The Euro-spec Urus SE will have a stated 37 miles of electric-only range, thanks to a 192-horsepower electric motor and a 25.9-kilowatt-hour battery, but that distance will probably be less in stricter U.S. federal testing. In electric mode, the SE can reach 81 miles per hour. With the 4-litre 620-horsepower twin-turbo V8 engine engaged, the picture is quite different. With 789 horsepower and 701 pound-feet of torque on tap, the SE—as big as it is—can reach 62 mph in 3.4 seconds and attain 193 mph. It’s marginally faster than the Urus S, but also slightly under the cutting-edge Urus Performante model. Lamborghini says the SE reduces emissions by 80% compared to a standard Urus.

Lamborghini’s Urus plans are a little complicated. The company’s order books are full through 2025, but after that it plans to ditch the S and Performante models and produce only the SE. That’s only for a year, however, because the all-electric Urus should arrive by 2029.

Lamborghini’s Federico Foschini with the Urus SE in New York.
Lamborghini

Thanks to the electric motor, the Urus SE offers all-wheel drive. The motor is situated inside the eight-speed automatic transmission, and it acts as a booster for the V8 but it can also drive the wheels on its own. The electric torque-vectoring system distributes power to the wheels that need it for improved cornering. The Urus SE has six driving modes, with variations that give a total of 11 performance options. There are carbon ceramic brakes front and rear.

To distinguish it, the Urus SE gets a new “floating” hood design and a new grille, headlights with matrix LED technology and a new lighting signature, and a redesigned bumper. There are more than 100 bodywork styling options, and 47 interior color combinations, with four embroidery types. The rear liftgate has also been restyled, with lights that connect the tail light clusters. The rear diffuser was redesigned to give 35% more downforce (compared to the Urus S) and keep the car on the road.

The Urus represents about 60% of U.S. Lamborghini sales, Foschini says, and in the early years 80% of buyers were new to the brand. Now it’s down to 70%because, as Foschini says, some happy Urus owners have upgraded to the Performante model. Lamborghini sold 3,000 cars last year in the U.S., where it has 44 dealers. Global sales were 10,112, the first time the marque went into five figures.

The average Urus buyer is 45 years old, though it’s 10 years younger in China and 10 years older in Japan. Only 10% are women, though that percentage is increasing.

“The customer base is widening, thanks to the broad appeal of the Urus—it’s a very usable car,” Foschini says. “The new buyers are successful in business, appreciate the technology, the performance, the unconventional design, and the fun-to-drive nature of the Urus.”

Maserati has two SUVs in its lineup, the Levante and the smaller Grecale. But Foschini says Lamborghini has no such plans. “A smaller SUV is not consistent with the positioning of our brand,” he says. “It’s not what we need in our portfolio now.”

It’s unclear exactly when Lamborghini will become an all-battery-electric brand. Foschini says that the Italian automaker is working with Volkswagen Group partner Porsche on e-fuel, synthetic and renewably made gasoline that could presumably extend the brand’s internal-combustion identity. But now, e-fuel is very expensive to make as it relies on wind power and captured carbon dioxide.

During Monterey Car Week in 2023, Lamborghini showed the Lanzador , a 2+2 electric concept car with high ground clearance that is headed for production. “This is the right electric vehicle for us,” Foschini says. “And the production version will look better than the concept.” The Lanzador, Lamborghini’s fourth model, should arrive in 2028.

Malls Welcomed Dogs. The Results Have Been Ruff.

Shopping centres adopt pet-friendly ‘pawlicies,’ and cope with puppy accidents and greyhounds running up and down the escalators