The relevancy of this entry to this blog is questionable but I thought I should share something I noticed and got a kick out of. A summer ago I volunteered to help a pet adoption service which works out of my neighborhood. I have never seen a group of people so in love with dogs and cats as I saw during my time working with this agency. Throughout all the odd human animal interactions I saw one thing struck me as particularly weird. Since the shelter we worked at could not house all the dogs, we gave the dogs out to foster homes who would watch the dogs for a week at a time. Every-time one of these foster owners delivered their dog back to the shelter they always had to report what they had fed their dog. The list of things these people gave their animals would make any 3rd world inhabitants mouth water. One lady remarked that since her dog didn't like the shiitake mushrooms she gave him, she diced them and mixed in beef scraps for him. More commonly, foster care owners gave their dogs ridiculously fancy dog foods which even I would have considered eating if presented with one on a plate. Recently the LA Times gave 18 people Spam, Pork Liver Pate, Liverwurst, and Newmans Own Dog Food, and asked them to ID all of them. 72 % of the people asked ID'd the dog food as Pate. I have a dog, I understand the animal man connection. But I will never feed the creature that will happily burry its mouth in a pile of shit any food that can be mistaken as Pate. How do these people live with themselves I wonder? Feeding their dogs expensive foods only to find whole bottle caps and marbles in their dog's stool (as I have found in my dogs, not that I like rip it apart to look for goodies but you know...it sticks out). I think people like to project their tastes on their dogs, just like they do their children. Owners dress up their dogs, give them vegan dog food (it exists), take them to pet salons to give them haircuts. Even i'm a little guilty: I wash my dog with pantine pro v shampoo cause I think it smells good in my hair. But I make dam sure to feed her cheap food, because I'm not giving her pate if she don't appreciate it.
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