I Hate People Who Have Pets
You’ve seen it before.
It starts out as a Facebook post..
Fig 1. An Actual Facebook post from one of the author’s sub-mental friends
If they say they’re thinking about doing something they’ve already decided, this is just step one in a series of events that will lead to a sad, neglected pet. I’ll get to that sequence but first a few more words.
I’m not sure if this is because of the recession or a return to simpler pleasures and times, necessarily, or maybe it has to do with the fact that so much of our lives is spent staring at this electronic window that you’re staring at now, that shows you other thoughts, ideas, places and people. Some of them whom you know outside of this electronic window. Some of them you just know here.
Most of them who by rote will type “soooo cuuuute ^_^ ” when you post a picture of a pet to your goddamned Facebook page. This is one because many people do think that pets are genuinely cute and also there’s nothing much else to say other than: “Yep, that’s a fucking dog alright”.
These pet acquisitions are by and large due to my age group and demographic. I’m 30 and those who have their marbles together to have a family or a marriage are doing so and those who don’t (myself incl.) aren’t. So you end up putting a lot of square pegs into round holes. Don’t read any sexual innuendo into that last sentence, though there is a bit of that too.
You do things that are sort of what you think grownups should do but your guidebook’s edition is from when you were a child, whenever that was, thinking about what it’s like to be an adult. Dad won’t let you get a dog, well by god you’ll get a dog when you’re big and have your own house. You just didn’t know that your house wouldn’t be a house at all but instead an apartment. A sort of cheap apartment now that you think of it.
So with all of this in mind, and the fact that you need to please the people on the electronic window computer machine you decide to get a puppy.
A pet is a low-risk investment for this kind of attention farming.
Here is the process:
1. You go into puppy mode, both IRL and online. This adds a new facet to your personality and you like it. You have a new sense of purpose. The problem is this stage can only last for so long because after awhile people will want you to make good on your word. Pity them.
2. You start looking for a puppy. At first with much exuberance and then like everything else, it becomes a chore. Price and model suddenly come into play. Do you buy an expensive dog which is basically an artifact to your disposable income for as long as the dog shall live or do you get a scrappy homeless dog from the shelter which you’d think would pack more of a punch with your liberal PETA type friends but really they prefer fancy dogs too. You will of course broadcast this process over your Facebook page.
3. You get a puppy. You and your puppy are Thelma and Louise. You take pictures together and fuck a redneck you met at a bar who later steals your wallet and then you drive around in a convertible. The pictures and convertible part for sure.
4. Your puppy shits all over your house. Maybe a facebook update about how you scolded him and his face looked so sad. But really his face wasn’t sad, you just added that part to keep up appearances. And like a woman stuck in an abusive relationship, get ready to keep up the appearances, sister.
5. Your puppy posts are getting less and less love. The last one didn’t even get a “Like”. At first your friends came over to see your “new baby (lol!)” but now they are bored of your “new baby (lol!)” and wish he would stay the fuck off their corduroy pants with that fucking hair he leaves everywhere.
6. The honeymoon is over when you realize that your hotel in Vegas costs $100 a night and Scruffy’s “Dog Hotel” costs $25 per night.
7. Scruffy, once the star of many pictures and recipient of accolades is now the forgotten child star of the dog world. He sleeps most of the day and while you love him for the same reason you love anything (time+lack of alternatives) most of the time you know deep down inside that it was a mistake to have a dog since you don’t have a kid or a husband to share the responsibility. Which brings you back to square one of not being married and not having children. This then either goes two ways, one is like the Old Woman Who Swallowed A Fly where you find anyone who will marry you to solve the dog problem and #2 involves training your dog to bite mailmen so the city can make the hard decision for you.
Consider for a moment how often people “lose” their pets in comparison to how often they lose other things that they value. If you’ve ever had a dog or a cat you know that your house is like a magnet for that animal and they might run off but stay within a 100 yard radius.
Also notice how sloppy the handwriting is on those lost pet fliers?
Also, if you know a dude who has done the whole puppy thing on Facebook please send me his name and other critical information so I can add him to my list of people to imprison when I hold political office. This is just abhorrent behavior and the state will not stand for it.
Below is a picture of my dog who used to ride in the car with me places sometimes. Sometimes we’d stop at McDonalds and i’d get her a soft serve cone and a cheeseburger. Now you see, there are good reasons to have a pet actually, and a dog can be a great friend, but none of the people who post about them on facebook would ever actually experience any of those things. I never took her to a dog park and never posted a photo of her on facebook. But I always knew that i’d have to leave Scruffy (her actual name) and she now lives with a friend of mine in Los Angeles.
.
I should have told her everything, while I still had the chance.
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Tagged with facebook, hate, people, pets, puppies, shut the fuck up already
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Scruffy is “soooo cuuuute ^_^ ”
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I would imagine that, when considering how often people lose pets in proportion to other things they value, fairly quickly one will realize that pets are animate and mobile, whereas the vast majority of other things valued are likely inanimate objects. Furthermore, the variables that exist that may thwart a pet from returning home are somewhat numerous.
Additionally, it’s probably fortunate that others can actually manage to foster more than a superficial bond with an animal, rather than maintain the sad scene of neglect you’ve painted.
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Divi– you’re absolutely right.
“I should have told her everything, while I still had the chance.”
Aww so sad
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Nice dag you have there, I prefer mongrels myself.
I don’t know why people piss over having a certain breed. Its stupid and sad, you get a mongrel and there are no genetic inbred health issues they have better temperment and live around 15 years. I am lucky enough to own one of my two dogs, the other died but hell I had him since I was months old. I also hate dogs being used as status symbols by fags with something to prove.
My dogs name is scruffy too. She is a cross collie and german shepherd. I love owning dogs but if I didn’t have the means to keep one I wouldn’t buy one. Oh and another thing, you can’t charge for a mongrel. My dogs were free.
I hate a lot of things but dogs are not one of them.
You make some good points andy, people should just go out and have children if that is what they really want. The other thing you said was right, my dog got out for like an hour without me noticing once (I was stoned) and she never left my front garden. Pets don’t just leave except for my cat but he was an asshole anyways lol. At least I know he is looked after though.
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Hear hear, I agree! Spending shit-loads of money on a dog who will go blind and deaf on you in few years is such a waste. Even more sadly is that it increases the demand for purebreds and breeders respond by making more! It is such a shame to bring a living and feeling animal into this world while at the same time dooming it to a lifetime of neglect and health problems.
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Awesome post
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i hate people who have pets i lost mine 3 years ago still upset feel like there rubbing it in it saying like ha ha u dont have a pet no more and they do why do people with pets like to rub it in makes me mad angry to cant take it
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If you want to help find Scruffy, you can visit the site http://www.ScruffyIsLost.com
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Taylor family, why doesn’t your site have any contact info.. i’d say someone doesn’t really want to find that fucking dog.
I once lived with five Vietnamese uncles, some rotten cousins, and one super submissive aunt who cooked for all of us. Unfortunately, she was a bad cook. She never met a dish she couldn’t make flavorless. My mother, who is sort of Viet Cong by way of birth, said the relatives from the south can’t cook for shit, because So Viet food is inferior to commie cuisine. Just ask Ho Chi Minh.
Getting back on track, my uncle brought home a dog and placed it in the kitchen behind the baby gate. I was sort of stoked we were getting a pet. I’d pinned one of the family rabbits under the tire of my Monte Carlo one drunken morning and my aunt skinned it in the sink and it incarnated as stir fry.
As for the dog, it disappeared before we got a chance to play fetch. I have a dream, one that has nothing to do with Martin Luther King, that at some point my colon had processed a Scruffy.
As for people posting pics of their pets, it gives me Nam style flashbacks. Especially when I see rabbits and dogs.
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Fuck you. I love my dog, and I love posting photographs on Facebook.
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pets are supposed to be healing, i guess not everyone should own a pet.
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Sarah you’re a douche. People who plaster their facebook profiles with their pets are beyond obnoxious. Not to mention, I hate stepping in your dog’s shit that you fail to clean up when you take him for a walk. I have a dog, I don’t like him but he lives here. He belongs to my husband and my husband knows if I step in dog shit I go ape-shit. Good post.
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