Is Easy a Good Thing?

Gina already identified "natural" as being one of the big marketing themes at Global Pet Expo, but  every time I turned around, someone was advertising some product designed to make owning a dog, cat, fish, snake, lizard, or tarantula "easier." Magical fish tank cleaning devices, little packages of crickets designed so the soccer moms never have to deal with their kids' lizards' food, self-cleaning litter boxes, and every slicer, dicer, and ginzu knifeset imaginable to remove the fuss from caring for pets.

Now, if this means you have more time to take your dogs to the beach, I'm all for it. But I'm afraid a lot of this innovation just means that people who don't actually have the time for a dog, cat, or other highly social animal will decide that they do. And while I don't think most dogs and cats really get the kind of care they deserve and would thrive with, that goes quintuple for more exotic pets, such as many kinds of lizard. (I'm willing to concede snakes and fish probably don't care too much.)

The elimination of elimination as a chore worries me, too. I hate cleaning litter boxes and pooper scooping as much as the next person, but the pee and poop patrol can actually alert you to a lot of possible health problems. I'm not quite sure I want a system that means I don't ever have to think about my dog or cat's output again.

So by all means, spend your former litter-box-cleaning-hours playing laser pointer tag with your cat. But please, please, don't just stay later at the office or use the time updating your iPod playlists. And if the pet's diet grosses you out, maybe don't get that pet in the first place. Just a suggestion.

Comments

Yes! Thank you for saying this. As an active rescue volunteer for a double-coated breed, the first thing people ask is "do they shed"? Most dogs shed a lot less if you invest just 15 minutes a day on brushing. Instead everyone is engaged in the quest for the holy grail of a non-shedding dog.

It is ironic that while the HAB (human-animal bond) people conduct studies to prove the positive impact of animals and nature on humans, the other half of the population is busy sterilizing nature.