So YOU LOVE YOUR DOG More Than Your Mother? Don't Be Ashamed ... It's As American As Dog Shit!
Cheney'sDick
Book Review
By Jonathan Yardley
Sunday, April 12, 2009; B08
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"ONE NATION UNDER DOG"
Adventures in the New World of Prozac-Popping Puppies . . .
By Michael Schaffer
Henry Holt. 288 pp. $24
Six of ten U.S. households own pets, up 12 percent between 2000 and
2006. Spending by Americans on their pets more than doubled from $17
billion in 1994 to $41 billion in 2007 and is expected to rise at an
11 percent clip over the next two years. No doubt most of that
spending is for routine stuff, but as Michael Shaffer recounts in this
informative, entertaining and sobering book, our most privileged pets
"live in a world of dog walkers and pet sitters and animal trainers
and canine swim therapists and pet Reiki masseuses. . . . [a] baroque
and endlessly subspecialized array of service providers."
That is the world into which Schaffer plunged while writing "One
Nation Under Dog." The title was dreamed up by his wife, he says, but
he seems to have failed to consult the Googlesphere, which would have
alerted him that it's also the name of a company that sells dog-themed
plaques, bracelets and T-shirts "inspired by our love of animals."
This coincidence merely underscores the point of Schaffer's book: that
doggiemania constitutes very big business, and often very strange
business as well. Much of it "can be explained," Schaffer writes, "by
a popular term I first heard at a Global Pet Expo: fur baby." For
millions of Americans, dogs are members of the family, frequently as
substitutes for children they never had or who grew up and moved
away.
This marks a singular change in American attitudes. In the past,
parents frequently acquired pets as companions, rewards or palliatives
for their children, and of course some still do, as the Obamas have
reminded us. They also acquired pets -- dogs, mainly -- as guards and
often left them to sleep outdoors in doghouses or less inviting
chambers. By 2001, in rather alarming contrast, "83 percent of
American pet owners referred to themselves as their animal's 'mommy'
or 'daddy,' " a reflection of "the centrality of dogs in the lives of
ordinary people." A recurrent theme in "One Nation Under Dog" is that
all of this isn't actually about the animals, but "about the humans."
To quote Schaffer:
"A historian from the future, with no surviving evidence to go on save
the inventory of a Petco superstore, would have a relatively easy time
figuring out the tastes, needs, and neuroses of our human society,
from contemporary takes on health and nutrition (all those novel 'all-
natural' vitamins and supplements suggest our wallet-emptying passion
for wellness is tempered with a certain suspicion of traditional
medicine) to modern concern with home aesthetics (you'll never go
broke selling products that hide litter boxes in sleek-looking side
tables, purport to reduce kitten fecal odor, or promise to keep your
dog permanently off that nice new sofa)."
Doubters are referred to the page after page of advertisements for pet-
related products in Sky Mall, the magazine for bored (and generally
affluent) airplane passengers. The sky, literally and figuratively, is
the limit. People who see their pets as extensions and reflections of
themselves apparently have no hesitation about laying out significant
sums to give those pets the best (i.e., the most expensive) food,
accoutrements and veterinary care.
With regard to the latter, veterinary medicine is undergoing numerous
and far-reaching changes. What was previously a profession that in
great measure served farm and working animals has become
"suburbanized, pet-focused," almost unbelievably specialized and
increasingly dominated by women. "Instead of dealing with clients who
view each animal as an economic unit -- and thus might treat the vet
like a tractor repairman," today's vets often deal "with clients who
loved their animals for their own sakes and proved increasingly
willing to act on that love by ordering up previously unimaginable
medical interventions."
That's only part of the story, though a significant one, considering
that pet owners in the United States spend about $10 billion a year on
veterinary bills. Schaffer writes about a woman in New York City who
has become "the key interpersonal connector for a burgeoning canine
social scene" that involves, among other things, regular monthly
meetings of the Manhattan Chihuahua group. The human members of the
group, it goes without saying, are a lot more interested in
socializing and networking than the dogs are, so they have Christmas
parties and Circle Line cruises and other events at which the dogs
serve as excuses for the people to get together.
Apart from products, services and social events, the meteoric rise in
the popularity of dogs has brought less amusing, more vexing matters
into the arena. Schaffer describes the vitriolic controversies in San
Francisco over dog parks and other issues that "have convulsed the
city's politics, leading to several federal lawsuits, a 1,500-person
march on city hall, and an array of allegations that one or both sides
of the conflict are guilty of racism, pollution, homophobia,
environmental extremism, child endangerment, Big Brotherism, and puppy
hatred. Not to mention the failure to pick up poop."
In light of that, it is no surprise that "the world of animal-focused
attorneys has seen a population explosion, with lawyers hashing out
tricky questions involving public ethics (anticruelty legislation,
dogfighting prosecutions), public safety (dog-muzzling laws, bans on
allegedly antisocial breeds), and the needs and neuroses of the pet-
owning public (liability lawsuits, animal estate law, and custody
rulings on pets in divorce)." In the past two decades, animal-law
classes have been established in 89 law schools, and no doubt more
have been added since Schaffer wrapped up this book.
On and on it goes: puppy mills, pet shops, shelters, euthanasia,
tainted pet-food ingredients from China. Our fur babies may be
loveable and cuddly, but they've also confirmed us in many of our
worst human instincts: to confront and litigate, to climb the social
ladder and flaunt our high position once we've reached it, to become
wholly absorbed in our own precious selves, to flatter ourselves with
luxury and excess. As the man says in this terrific book, it's not
about the dogs, it's about the people.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/10/AR2009041001143.html