Name Tag Best Gift for Pets
Let me state unequivocally from the very start that I like animals.
This is important, because people get strange when it comes to this topic. I could write a column about an elected official I thought was a Philistine toe sucker, and I probably wouldn’t hear a thing about it. Toe suckers, I suppose, are no big deal.
But talk about pets--and say anything even remotely disparaging--and the mail pours in and the phone rings off the hook.
The messages are invariably heartfelt and poignant:
“Why, if you were half as intelligent as my dog. . . .”
“I’ll tell you how much you know, you stupid !&!. My cat could write circles around you. . . .”
“Someone ought to put a choke chain around you and yank on it a few times real hard. . . .”
The fact is, people go to great lengths to accommodate an animal.
They will select their homes on the basis of a beloved pet’s needs.
Shell out for huge medical bills.
Get rid of allergic boyfriends.
Even pay for a costly headstone when Bowser finally goes to that big fire hydrant in the sky.
A colleague of mine is a perfect example of this.
For the last two years, she has paid a woman $40 a week to come into her home while she is at work and talk to her animals. After a few hours of game shows, they probably get lonely.
I offered to do the job for $30, but she wasn’t interested. I guess leaving messages on the answering machine just wasn’t good enough.
Which goes to support my point: With animal lovers, nothing is too good for Phydeaux or Phluffy.
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Manufacturers, of course, are very happy about this. Inventors are always working on new and useful pet products.
Some of them, available at your local grocery store, have done better than others.
Remember the doggie ice cream bonbons they came out with a few years ago? Those didn’t do so well. For one thing, a lot of consumers were rushing in to grab some dessert and didn’t always read the labels. For another, any animal that enjoys licking its private parts probably isn’t quite evolved enough for such fare.
The canned-food shelf is another matter. Practically half of the labels say the cat food inside is now “better tasting,” although I’m afraid to ask how anyone would know that. And right now there are “holiday boxes” of crunch bones for your dog, just in case you’re short on gift ideas.
Not good enough, you say? Then trot over to your local pet store.
The Animal House in the Buenaventura Mall has hundreds of items sure to be treasured by your pet this Christmas. Tired of the usual doggie chew toys in the shapes of hamburgers or footballs? Then let your animal put the bite on the likenesses of such luminaries as Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan.
Still not good enough?
There are fashion sweaters in all of this season’s most popular colors. Doggie and kitty sweat shirts with “Party Animal” and “I Hate Cats” written on them.
Reindeer antlers that can be strapped onto your pet. Holiday collars with bells on them. A “Bizzy Kitty” home entertainment system, guaranteed to keep your cat amused for hours.
“They’re selling quite well,” said sales assistant Kelly Gannon.
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There is, unfortunately, a somber side to all of this.
What if you do everything humanly possible for your pet and he or she still runs away or gets lost? It happens all the time.
From 1991 to 1992 in Ventura County, statistics show the Animal Regulation Department handled 8,939 lost or unclaimed dogs and 9,481 lost or unclaimed cats. Of those animals, only 2,263 dogs were reclaimed by their owners. For cats the figure was 173.
The rest of the animals were either destroyed or adopted out, a department spokeswoman said.
A main cause for the problem, according to kennel supervisor Norma Worley, is a gift many owners don’t give their pets.
“A lot of owners don’t put tags on,” Worley said. “Then, if the animal runs around loose and is picked up, we don’t know who it belongs to.”
But this may soon be a problem of the past. And again, we have the busy minds of those pet product manufacturers to thank.
Perhaps as early as next month, Ventura County dogs and cats that are either adopted out or returned to their owners will be injected under the skin with an information-packed microchip.
“This is the future,” Worley said. “The chip will have computer information about the owner on it, as well as information about the animal. When the chip is scanned, the information will be there.”
This sounds like a great solution to me.
Your dog gets returned home. Your cat gets back in time for dinner.
And pet product manufacturers know where to send their latest catalogues.
