Never finding anyone you love as much as your dog.
Dog makes a cameo appearance in the wedding photos.
Wedding takes place at the dog run.
Parenting the Fur Baby
Have you ever heard someone compare their dogs to children? They’re not just speaking metaphorically: more and more people consider their dogs to be kids, calling themselves parents and their dogs “fur babies.”
In San Francisco, dogs now outnumber children, 150,000 to 108,000, according to the 2010 census. And in China, a recent governmental move to institute a one-dog policy similar to the one-child policy in effect for decades met with so much resistance that it was withdrawn.
How much are dogs really like children? Dogs have the developmental capacity of a two-year-old, according to some studies, and are capable of understanding something shy of two hundred words—though one psychologist reportedly taught his sheepdog to understand one thousand. New studies show that dogs share their owners’ emotions and can “read their minds,” mostly by being adept at interpreting physical and facial cues. For instance, according to one study, dogs won’t beg from a person who’s reading a book.
People tend to talk to their dogs in voices similar to those they use on their babies, with high-pitched tones, simple words, and present-tense verbs. With dogs, though, they tend to issue more orders, while with babies they will ask questions.
“Training a dog is not that different from the kind of guidance and nurturing and parenting you would give to a child,” says Gail Clark, PhD, a dog psychologist and author of Puppy Parenting. “As a good parent you would have to be firm and loving at the same time, and that’s parallel to what it means today to be a good parent to your dog.”
Dogs vs. Kids
There may be a new TV show called Puppies vs. Babies, which is a cuteness contest, but what’s the outcome of the real-life contest? How is owning a dog different from having a kid? And which is better, dogs or kids?
This chart will help you compare.
FINAL TALLY: 5 for dogs, 4 for kids, 2 draws. WINNER: dogs!
Doggie Day Care
Sending your dog to day care rather than leaving him home all day alone got its start, according to one article, in San Francisco in the 1980s, but has only taken off in recent years with studies that say dogs suffer from separation anxiety and depression when left alone.
Getting your dog into the right doggie day care facility can be as high pressured as getting your child accepted at certain nursery schools, with interviews of both owner and dog. Typically, day care centers require that dogs have been vaccinated and spayed or neutered, and there are often size limits.
Prices range from $12 to $50 or so a day, with in-home care in smaller towns costing less than top-notch facilities in larger cities. Most centers offer exercise, socialization, snacks, and naps, but some may include such amenities as on-site swimming pools, massages, and webcams so you can keep an eye on your dog when you’re at work.
Take Your Dog to Work Day
First came Take Our Daughters to Work Day, which morphed into Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, and now we have Take Your Dog to Work Day, celebrated on June 24. In its thirteenth year, five thousand companies now participate in the event. Allowing dogs in the workplace, say the organizers, leads to more creativity and productivity, less absenteeism, and even longer hours.
Helicopter Dog Parenting
What does it mean to be a good parent to your dog? Beyond enlightened care and training, conscious dog owners may invest in the following:
Digital dog activity monitor. If your dog is home without you rather than at doggie day care, this monitor tells you whether he’s a couch potato—or tearing up the place.
Adventure Dog DVDs. These films promise to keep your pet not only entertained but “learning” even when you’re not there.
Doggie and Me classes. You’ve heard of Mommy and Me? These are the same thing, but with fur babies.
Barking Boot Camp. Early morning boot camp exercise classes, with dogs.
Dogs have been into celebrating their birthdays ever since they figured out food was involved.
Dog birthday parties. Even if you’re not crazy enough to marry off your dog, you might want to throw your pet a birthday party, complete with cute hats, animal friends, birthday cake, and a big wet birthday kiss.
Dog Toilet Training
When I first read about dog toilet training, I was confused. Really? I thought. People are training dogs to use the actual toilet?
Well, yes, in a few cases. A YouTube video uploaded by someone named Poopeedog features a dog jumping up onto an actual toilet, peeing, then pooping, then blinking at the camera, no doubt thinking, Seriously? You’re filming me doing this?
Or more to the point: Seriously? You’re watching this? The answer is yes in nearly 150,000 cases, though the video offers no instructional content.
Usually, though, “toileting” refers to using one of the new pet “toilet” products, like the plastic trough that hooks into your plumbing system and features a handheld sprayer to wash away doggie waste, or one of those boxes that look like a putting green.
Disposable dog diapers are also available now, in tiny sizes for puppies or for older dogs.
And if you’d just like to train your dog the old-fashioned way, you can look for ecologically-sound waste bags that will biodegrade along with their contents.
Name That Doggie
When your new neighbor calls for Max or Lola, do you think a child or a dog will come running? What about Buddy or Bear?
It’s anyone’s guess as more and more dogs get people names, while children are given dog names.
All the Top 10 names for both genders of dogs are human names now. Here, a recent popularity list:
Female
Bella (Isabella was no. 1 for baby girls in 2010)
Daisy
Molly
Lucy
Sadie
Maggie
Bailey
Chloe
Sophie (Sophia was recently no. 2 for baby girls)
Lola
Male
Max
Charlie
Jack
Buddy
Jake (Jacob has for several years been the no. 1 name for baby boys)
Tucker
Duke
Toby
Bear
Oscar
This dad is taking no chances with his fur baby.
Other popular people names also showing up for dogs include Lily, Zoe, and Ruby for girls and Cooper, Oliver, and Jasper for boys.
Buddy, Duke, and Bear are not people names, you say? Au contraire. Chef Jamie Oliver has a Buddy Bear while actress Alicia Silverstone’s son is Bear. Justine Bateman and makeup mogul Bobbi Brown are both the mothers of boys named Duke.
Eighteen Things Every Fur Baby Deserves
Puppy- and dog-care products imitate baby and child products. Any diligent human parent will want to buy the following for her fur baby:
1. Puppy nursing bottle
2. Diapers (more, much more than you’ve ever wanted to know, on that later)
3. Chest carrier or carrying sling
4. New puppy binky
5. Puppy teething pacifier and ring
6. Teething gel
7. Bottle- and rattle-shaped toys
8. Squeak toys
9. Receiving blankets
10. Digital ear thermometer
11. Baby powder grooming spray
12. High chair
13. Dog stroller
14. Playpen
15. Car seat
16. Bike basket and trailer
17. Bike helmet
18. Doggie backpack (though there are
also front packs in which to carry your pup)
Other celebrities whose children have canine-appropriate names include Mike Myers, whose son is Spike; Michele Hicks and Jonny Lee Miller, parents of Buster; Roseanne Barr, whose son is named Buck; Damon Dash, who has a son named Lucky; Gerard Way, who has a daughter named Bandit; and Robert Rodriguez, father of Rocket.
CRAZY? Breastfeeding Your Dog
A Ugandan man was arrested for forcing his wife to breastfeed his five puppies. His defense: he had no milk for them, having given his cows to his wife’s family as a dowry.
Toy Things
Buster’s gonna scream if you try to make him play with that nasty old tennis ball one more time. Dog toys have come a long way. Many of the most fascinating—for you and for your dog—fall into one of these categories:
Things you had when you were a kid. Rubber soldiers, say, or plastic dinosaurs, or dolls or wading pools, things that will bring back memories of your own childhood and that you might even play with when nobody (including Buster) is looking.
Things you’d have now, if you could afford them. Chanel bags or Cuban cigars. Champagne bottles or Tiffany boxes. Things you kinda want but couldn’t possibly afford and so you make fun of them by buying cheap polyester fur versions for your dog.
Dog with mini-me plaything.
Hipster so-uncool-they’re-cool things. Stuffed cassette tapes, for instance, or orange peanuts like those marshmallow ones your grandmother used to try to make you eat.
Soothing things. A bone that smells like Mom and a pad that cools you down, they’re cheaper than a doggie shrink and who knows, maybe just as effective. There’s even a stuffed pillow called a Chill Pill.
Green things. Biodegradable, sustainable, and often locally made (check Etsy).
Techno things. Yeah, there’s an app for that, like the squeaky app that emits a sound dogs seem to love.
Things designed to make your dog smarter. Puzzles and other interactive toys to challenge their little—okay, their growing, totally growing!—brains.
Things that are more fun for you than for your dog. A ball launcher. A ball that when he clutches it in his mouth makes him look like he’s got a giant handlebar mustache. A scooter that you stand on while he pulls you along and you imagine you’re competing in the Iditarod, though you just look like an idiot on a scooter being towed by your poor dog.
CRAZY about your dog or just CRAZY
Calling your dog your “baby.”
Using your dog to try to bond over parenting experiences with your friend who just had an actual—yes, I mean human—baby.
Pulling strings to get dog into top-notch day care.
Sleeping with someone to get dog into top-notch day care.
Angsting over the whole housebreaking thing.
Dealing with it by putting up a fence and turning your yard into one big open-air dog toilet.
What’s Your Celebrity-Dog IQ?
You know everything about their clothes, their love lives, their babies—and their dogs. Or do you? Test your celebrity-dog knowledge here.
1. Jennifer Aniston was so crazy about her dog, Norman, she did what when he died?
a. Cradled his stiff body in her arms and howled at the moon.
b. Had his ashes turned into a necklace.
c. Tattooed his name on her right foot.
2. Elton John’s dog Arthur played what role at the singer’s wedding?
a. Groom.
b. Minister.
c. Best man.
3. Mark Zuckerberg’s dog Beast has over 350,000 what?
a. Dollars in the bank.
b. Pairs of Hipster Puppy sunglasses.
c. Likes on Dogbook.
4. Charlie Sheen’s pug died of:
a. A drug overdose.
b. Embarrassment.
c. Malnutrition.
5. George and Laura Bush’s terrier Barney did what to a journalist?
a. Used him like a lamppost.
b. Humped his leg like he meant it.
c. Bit him.
6. Lindsay Lohan paramour Samantha Ronson’s bulldog did what to a Maltese in her Hollywood apartment building?
a. Married it.
b. Sold it out to the paparazzi.
c. Killed it.
7. Mariah Carey was sued for nonpayment by a vet who did what to the singer’s prematurely born Jack Russell puppy?
a. Tube fed it.
b. Slept with it.
c. Tube fed it, slept with it, and videotaped the whole thing.
8. eBay bidders paid more than $300 for what item previously used by Paris Hilton’s dog?
a. Little shiny doggie purse.
b. Little lacy doggie panties.
c. Empty smelly dog-food can.
9. A pooch previously owned by convicted dogfighter Michael Vick got what from the city of Dallas?
a. Front-row seats at the Cowboys’ playoff game.
b. Tiny gold-plated boxing gloves.
c. An edible key to the city.
10. Because of a traumatic early experience, Marilyn Monroe refused to ever do what with a dog?
a. Pet one.
b. Date one.
c. Be photographed with one.
Key: The correct answer to every question is c.
Celebrity-Dog Matchup
Match the celebrity with his or her dog’s name.
1. Marilyn Monroe
a. Sweetlips
2. Pete Wentz
b. Jazzmin
3. Jacqueline Kennedy
c. Blondie
4. George Washington
d. George
5. Audrey Hepburn
e. Audrey
6. Ozzy Osbourne
f. Ozzy
7. Brett Favre
g. Clipper
8. Oprah Winfrey
h. Famous
9. Adolf Hitler
i. Mafia
10. Rachael Ray
j. Dash
11. Queen Victoria
k. Boatswain
12. Ryan Gosling
l. Spike
13. Joan Rivers
m. Isaboo
14. Emily Brontë
n. Kola
15. Mila Kunis
o. Keeper
16. Dave Barry
p. Earnest
17. Lord Byron
q. Ernest Hemingway
18. Kellan Lutz
r. Sophie
Key: 1,i; 2, q; 3, g; 4, a; 5, h; 6, f; 7, b; 8, r; 9, c; 10, m; 11, j; 12, d; 13, l; 14, o; 15, e; 16, p; 17, k; 18, n
CRAZY? Presidential Dog is a Lot of Work
Eighty volunteers spent five hundred hours fashioning a likeness of the Obamas’ dog, Bo, as a White House Christmas decoration.
CRAZY about your dog or just CRAZY
Following celebrity dog ownership as avidly as some people follow celebrity baby bumps.
Thinking that naming your dog Norman makes you soul sisters with Jennifer Aniston.
Judging a political candidate a little bit more positively if he has a dog.
Does he like dogs? He’s got your vote.
Thinking your dog is more beautiful than Queen Elizabeth’s corgis.
Thinking a corgi would have made a more beautiful bridesmaid than Pippa.
The Evidence For and Against
Dogs have played important roles in many religions around the world from ancient times through the present. In Nepal, dogs are honored for their divine role once a year at the festival of Tihar, where dogs are festooned with flower garlands, given special food, and marked on their foreheads with a Tilak, the Hindu powder of blessing. In the Hindu religious epic Mahabharata, dogs travel to heaven and act as guards of the un
derworld.
Devil Dogs?
In ancient mythology, black dogs are often evil creatures, and things haven’t improved much for black dogs today. Black dogs are seen as less friendly and more aggressive than dogs of other colors, and black dogs are more likely to end up in shelters and are slower to be adopted once they’re there.
Nearly half—45 percent—of 120,000 shelter dogs in a 2011 study were black, more than twice the proportion of white dogs. The number of black dogs who are put to sleep is more than twice the number of brown dogs euthanized.
People have superstitions about black dogs that may not be as well known as those relating to cats but are every bit as negative. In folklore, black dogs are phantoms, haunt cemeteries and castles, and symbolize death. Black dogs are associated with electrical storms, executions, and depression. Some people believe black dogs are more aggressive and harder to train than those of other colors. And then there’s the racist element.
Shelter workers even have a special name for the prejudice: black dog syndrome. To help black dogs get noticed and adopted, they may tie bright ribbons or bandannas around the dogs’ necks or place brightly colored blankets or toys in their cages.
Black dogs suffer from negative stereotypes and prejudice. All undeserved, of course.
Are dogs God? Or just godlike?
Exactly How Amazing Can Dogs Be? You Tell Us
Okay, even if you don’t believe dogs are god, everyone knows that they can be pretty amazing sometimes. How amazing? Take this quiz and see whether you’re as amazing as the average pooch.
Rabid Page 7