Thursday, March 12, 2009

Making animals more human like.




I went to petsmart the other day, usually whenever I go I can see some form of clothing for dogs. Understandable since some dogs cannot keep warm on their own. But then I went down the collar and leash aisle, I was astonished at what I saw, pink leashes, collars with flowers, or Harley Davidson emblems on them everywhere! It seems that making animals more like us is on a swift upraise. Just a few months ago I found some collars with designs on them on a small little rack and then the rest of the aisle was just plain black, green, pink, or blue leashes and collars. Now it is a whole aisle! It’s not just dog items either, cats are getting clothing and little tiny animals have human like houses as well. My question is why do we seem to have this need to make our animals more human like? Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was rather cute when we got our second dog Repunzle from the pound and she came with a cute little pink color with diamond like studs on them. But still this sort of thing seems to be getting out of hand. It seems the longer we have (domesticated) animals around, the more we want them to be like us. Why? Is it just so we can try to understand them better?

9 comments:

Danielle said...

I think the whole trend of dressing animals up like “baby-dolls” is hilarious! My mom has a rat terrier, which weighs in at 6 lbs- officially lighter than my cat. My mom started out slow, with a raincoat and a cute sweater for Christmas. But the last time I was over there, she has three coats, two dresses and several sweaters. I even joined in on the fun and bought her a super cute pirate tee shirt. My mom has never been the type of women to have a small dog, let alone buy clothes for it. I think because both her girls are grown up and out of the house she was a little lonely. Bailee (the dog) is now a part of every conversation my mom has with me, and she currently has her own room. And to answer your question… I don’t think the clothes are to understand your pet better… I think it’s more like a glorified baby doll… like a memory of the child you once had and miss taking care of.

Brianna Hagestad said...

Some little dogs really do need clothes. I have a 5lb Pomeranian chi wawa and he shivers so bad any time we take him outside. I gave up on buying him cute collars though, he chewed through everyone we bought..

Hannah said...

I love it when my sister dresses up her lassapoo(lasso appso/poodle)-I don't think the spelling is right. She rarely does it but it's so cute. For Halloween she bought him a bumble bee costume.Hilarious! Like Danielle said, it is like dressing up your favorite doll-as weird as that may sound. Some people probably feel so bonded to their animals that they want to love them as they would their own child. I don't see anything wrong with it.

Kay Fort said...

@brianna-i know that some dogs need clothing..and also..Repunzel now has a chain collar(not to be confused w/a choke collar) since my other dog keept chewing up Repunzle's collars..

@Brianna-i didn't say there was really anything wrong with it..but how do we know when it's to much? and why do we do it..is there anyother reason then for the purpose of being a baby doll?

Pat said...

As long as people don't put diapers on their dog, then it's all good.

(My wife saw this once in Mississippi, someone in Petsmart had her dog in a diaper, the dog had peed through the diaper so everytime she sat on the floor it left a wet spot. Would have been so much better if they had just housetrained the dog the regular way.)

Jay said...

Apparently some people find so much joy in playing dress-up with their animals. Seems rather childish. But to think that you should dress your dog (or cat) up for the sake of fashion is the most ridiculous idea.

Jennifer Fletcher said...

Dressing dogs up is becoming more and more popular. I personally think it is a little strange if it is done for fashion reasons. My brother and his wife have two dogs and they think of them as their children. They dress them up for Halloween and everything.

Tyler said...

I don't think that we try and make animals like us in the way you describe. I think that we view animals as our posessions and people like what they own to be unique. Having unique objects reflects back on the person. So, i think this uprising of "making our animals more like us" is just like any other fad or style out there.

Kelsey Donelson said...

I think people dress up their animals to be some sort of extension of themselves, more or less. Like for instance, my mom bought a little kids' Seahawks t-shirt for our Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Joker. He obviously doesn't even know what a shirt is, let alone a single team or the game of football itself. Our household is a bunch of diehard Seahawks fans, and we'd like to think our dog is, too (even though he really doesn't like to wear the shirt for very long).