Actually, there was some talk of a solution to this. It works in this, somewhat handwavy way.

The declaration my Dog $spot is not enough to instantiate the object itself. After all, you might want my Dog $spot = new Poodle.

But it might be enough typing to allow you to call Dog class methods on it, assuming that it is still undef. Which ties in with a somewhat bizzare use of an augmented assignment operators for the method call operator . resulting in  my Dog $spot .= new (name=>"Fido");

I could live with that . . .

Light a man a fire, he's warm for a day. Catch a man on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life. - Terry Pratchet