I was in the line for the drive-up window a few days ago at the local coffee shop, and in the car ahead of me, a little furry head poked out of the driver’s window. The server reached through the window and started feeding the dog from a packet of potato hash brown nuggets. Now, I love pets as much as the next person, particularly dogs, but as there wasn’t much opportunity for her to go and wash her hands, and she’d be handing other people’s food using those same, dog-licked fingers, I was awfully glad that I had ordered only coffee. And further, the driver pulled away with that same furry face peeking out the driver’s window, meaning it was in the driver’s lap. I do hope dog and pet- parent weren’t going far.
Why, for heaven’s sake, do we treat animals as humans? Bringing up my next point – when did pet owners become “pet parents”? And their non-human offspring went from “pets” to “fur babies”? As I said, I do love animals – or most of them. I like dogs particularly. We grew up having them. My mother had a fear of cats, which she inherited from my grandmother. So, of course, whenever we went anywhere that there were cats, they’d crowd around her. Both my daughter and I get an allergic reaction to cat fur, so we don’t cuddle them much. My neighbor takes her cat out for walks in a baby carriage, presumably because of its advanced age and mobility issues. All we can see is a small furry face, surrounded by blankets. It doesn’t look good, so I’m thinking in a confrontation with a field mouse, it might not win.
My brother and his wife have always been animal owners, with collections of dogs, cats, guinea pigs, and on one occasion, a baby woodchuck. Yes, it was a “rescue” woodchuck, found in the woods behind their house. They kept it until it started building a nest from the linings of the upholstered furniture, and then it was released into the wild. I think the local animal rescue leagues have them pegged as an easy mark whenever pets are being relocated from disaster areas. Their recent move, though, to a smaller senior development has resulted in some downsizing as some older pets have gone on to eternal rest. And speaking of that, there was a rather large pet cemetery in the community in which I used to work. I always wondered about that too, although I never got close enough to the names on the tiny headstones. One of my predecessors, the high school’s band director, took the band there one Memorial Day by mistake. I’m not sure when he realized it, or thought he might be in Oz, or Lilliput. Yes, I realize that pets are cherished members of the family, but as we’re looking at land use, is vast acreage given over to pets really a priority? I remember from my youth an incident where a vast concrete vault on a flatbed truck pulled up at the village store to ask for directions to one of our small town’s more prominent residents. It seems that her dog had passed, and she was giving him a place of dignified repose. Everyone in town wondered who it was for. She and her husband had lived alone, and he’d died in a car accident a few years before, so unless she’d rethought his placement, that left her dog. The dog’s name was “Liebchen”, which is German for “sweetheart”, so she was a bit over-the-top on the pet. They lived way out in the middle of nowhere, so it was difficult to verify, but we suspected that the husband’s ashes were scattered randomly in the back yard, while the dog had a mausoleum the size of the Arc de Triomphe.
You see them out an about, even appearing on the social media landscape. Pets dressed up in coats, sweaters, matching hats and mittens. Don’t people realize that is what the fur is for? That canines have lived for millennia without sweaters? Apparently not, although some animal breeds seem to be evolving into become less furry as time goes by. Some breeds do in fact look a bit naked. That’s what we’ve done to them. I saw a lady in the parking lot at Home Depot a few years ago with a little white poodle. The dog’s ears and tail were dyed pink, and the poor thing had a pink sweater. Let’s just say that serious consideration was given to reporting this lady for animal abuse, although I’m not sure if completely robbing the dog of its dignity qualifies. If it doesn’t, it should.
I find myself sometimes in sympathy with those in the dog food commercials that question keeping dog food in the refrigerator. It would be difficult to find space in ours most of the time, but when we were growing up, it was a can of dogfood taken from the shelf and a few left-over scraps that my mother didn’t think she could feed us kids. I don’t ever recall looking much at the ingredients and contemplating a healthier diet. From time to time, my mother would give Frisky some left over beef stew. It was rather comical, and I often think of those ads today showing all of the “healthy” ingredients. Our dog wouldn’t eat any vegetables, so she’d carefully pick out the carrots and potatoes, leaving a ring of them around her bowl.
There was a time that pets were legitimate “service” animals. They guided visually impaired people about. They still do aid law enforcement by sniffing out drugs or prison escapees. They are companions for the elderly and the lonely. All to the good. However, the lady a few years ago that wanted to book a seat on an airplane for her “support” peacock went a little too far. The airline wouldn’t let the bird on the plane, and the owner was quite indignant. As was the owner of the python that escaped into a Boston subway a few years back. Or the folks that are convinced that their pet Pit Bull is gentle and loving. Which it was until it jumped a fence and attacked a neighbor or a neighborhood child.
The ads for new and improving pet support intrigue me. One advertised a medication for “cat anxiety”. Really? Do cats get anxious? I’ve never had one, but I thought they ate, slept in a sunny spot, knocked stuff off the mantle, and shredded curtains. Now, cats have whole fitness centers in their homes. I was watching an episode of “House Hunters” a few years ago, and these folks needed a special room for the dogs. As it unfolded, the lady was a “dog blogger”, and need a separate space to photograph and document the dogs that were her media “content”. OK, then. Apparently, that’s “thing”, generating way, way more income than I ever earned as a teacher. And I’ve mentioned before about the couple on House Hunters International, that want a “better work/life balance”, so they’ve chosen to move to Cambodia. With their two large dogs, Bingo and Puff Puff. They want something right downtown so they won’t need a car or a motor scooter, but with a “green space” for the dogs to play. My thinking is that’s dangerous. If Puff Puff escapes, he could end up on a barbeque grill on a back street. Over the years, I’ve lived in places that cats previously occupied, and on a hot steamy day, their legacy continues to live on. We always know where the litter box was. And speaking of litter, I should point out that the litter industry has been working overtime to invent new and exciting technologies. These new devices, looking like something from a robotics convention, are designed to prevent odors and any trace of what the cat left. They have little doors that open and close, trays and boxes that rotate to . . . well, I’m not sure where. I don’t know what these things cost, but I’m guessing it’s in the neighborhood of a smaller SUV.
The latest advancements in pet care are happening in pet insurance. We knew that it was just a matter of time before the insurance industry would jump into pet care, because it’s a huge money-maker. And, like all health care, veterinary services have ballooned both in the quality of care and in the cost. In our day, when an animal got sick or had a serious health issue, it was dispatched to the afterlife. Now, our pets have surgical procedures, joint replacements, and basically anything that humans have, costing thousands of dollars. We spend as much on our pets as we spend on our children.
Let’s make an effort, then, as a nation, as a society, to let our pets just be our pets. We’ll go back to being pet owners in a much less fashion-conscious age. We’re not their parents unless one of us gave birth to them in an experiment gone horribly wrong. Let’s remember that animals are just that, and that animals have their own dignity. That they’ll follow their own Circle of Life, not ours. That they’re not little, furry people.
I'm Thinking...No! 