Our neighbors have a small dog — they walk the dog every day. And — the dog is always wearing some kind “clothing.” Well, that got me to wondering — why do people dress up their pets? I guess I can see that in cold weather some breeds of dogs don’t have enough meat on their bones or fur in their coats to keep them warm.
But if you look in pet shops, or on the Internet, they have tons of clothing items for dogs and cats and I suppose other kinds of pets, too. You can buy your dog a bathing suit, although I have no idea why anyone would do that. I looked at one web site and they sell hundreds (maybe thousands) of doggie Halloween costumes — you can dress your dog as a pirate, a princess, Superman, or maybe Darth Vader. Again, I’m not sure why anyone would even want to do that.
I guess many (maybe most) people consider a pet to be a member of the family and Americans spend an enormous amount of money every year on their animals. One of the sites that sells capes for dogs and Santa Claus hats for cats, among other things, had a link to a pet psychologist — apparently there is such a thing. Anyhow, the pet psychologist mentioned one study that suggests people buy clothes and toys for their animals because they are lonely. The University of Chicago asked 99 people to describe their own pet or the pet of someone they knew. The lonelier the people were in their everyday lives, the more likely they were to use human traits to describe their pets, using such words as “thoughtful” and “sympathetic.”
The point? As usual, there is no point. I guess we humans are social creatures and when we’re awkward around other people, we try to fill the void in some other way. Maybe for some people, a doggie in a coat, or a cat in a hat, fills the bill…..
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