Let me state for the record that I really like my dog, an 12-year-old cutie named Lulu. She plays a good game of fetch. She forces me to get a little more exercise with her constant need for walks. She has also mastered house-training (well, almost, but let’s not get into the details).
But would I plan a big celebration for her on National Pet Day, which happens to be today?
Not on your freaking life.
Lately it seems there are no limits to what we do for our four-legged friends. Some of us buy them a Louis Vuitton
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carrier. (Price tag? You don’t even want to guess.) Some of us have no qualms booking them a stay at luxury pet hotels that come complete with “in-suite television entertainment tuned to Animal Planet or DogTV.” And more and more of us subscribe to a high-end dog-food service.
The basic cost of owning a dog, from food to poop bags to routine veterinary care, can easily top $2,000 a year. But add that Louis Vuitton bag to the mix and you might be spending more on your pet than you’d pay for a car.
It’s all part of a trend to treat our pets like people. One study, from the Nielsen
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folks, noted that 95% of American pet owners consider their animals to be family members. Little wonder so many have us have taken to calling them our “fur babies.”
But I don’t need a study to tell me that: I just have to look at all the pet owners I know who post more pictures of their dogs on Instagram
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than of their spouses, children and grandchildren — you know, their human family members.
Speaking of which, consider this statistic from the folks at LendingTree: 28% of pet owners spend money specifically with those social-media posts in mind. You know, for important things like pet Halloween costumes. And for younger pet owners, as in Gen Zers, that figure increases to 47%. Which makes me want to head to the nearest dog park with a megaphone and announce: “FIDO DOESN’T CARE IF YOU DRESS HIM UP LIKE BATMAN!!!”
This is not to say our canine and feline companions don’t provide us with, well, companionship, which was truly a necessity during the bleakest days of the pandemic. But I think it’s important to distinguish the relationship you have with your dog from the ones with the humans in your life. When the pandemic eased, I spent plenty of time with friends I hadn’t seen in months, catching up on our personal and professional lives and just laughing ourselves silly.
Contrast that with the kinds of conversations I have with my dog. Me: “How’s your day going?” Lulu: “Arf.” Me: “Are you hungry for dinner?’” Lulu: “Arf.” Me: “Do you really think ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ deserved all that Oscar glory?” Lulu: “Arf.”
It’s not simply that I see no point to pretending my dog is human. I also don’t think that’s good for my mental health. As Martha Tousley, a registered nurse who specializes in psychiatric issues, writes: “Wonderful as it is, love for a pet is not a suitable substitute for human companionship.”
Moreover, we’re not necessarily doing our dogs any favors when we start pretending that they’re one of us. Most pet experts will tell you that dogs need boundaries — and they need to understand that they’re dogs. That is, they have different needs and desires than we do. No less an authority than pet trainer Cesar Millan — aka the “dog whisperer” — has noted that dog owners “give affection, affection, and more affection, when what the dog really needs is exercise, discipline — and then affection.”
I get the whole “fur baby” temptation, particularly now that my kids are all grown up and out of the house. On a quiet day, I’ll chat away with Lulu and feed her one treat too many. And when we go for one of our walks during a chilly day, I’ll take care to put on her coat.
But Lulu is still a pet, not my child. Does she deserve a day all her own? I suppose there’s no harm in the idea — in the same way there’s no harm in celebrating National Margarita Day or Remember Your First Kiss Day.
So maybe I’ll take Lulu for an extralong walk today. Just don’t expect me to be toting a Louis Vuitton dog bag in case she wants a lift home.
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