Friday, August 26, 2011
The person who wrote this crud clearly hates dogs.
Another pet peeve (no pun intended) of mine: Personification in advertising. I really hate it because I love animals. So when advertisers make animals act as stunningly stupid as the dumbest, most witless human beings, it really ticks me off, because I know better.
Dogs and cats do disgusting things that we don't need to get into here. I get that. But if I thought for one minute that dogs would ever react to the smell of "Beggin Strips" like this, I would instantly lose all respect for dogs, everywhere. Sniffing each other's butts- I get it. Eating grass- I get it. Marking territory- hey, it's genetically programmed in. I get it. Going insane over the smell of a snack and repeating the name of that snack over and over again in your mind? That level of insulting idiocy is reserved for human beings, sorry.
There's also the little message here that when a dog jumps on you, it's not showing love or loyalty. In fact, it's not thinking of you at all. Nope- it's just thinking of BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON!!!! Because the smell of BACON compels dogs to lose control, abandon their territory, and race to the source as quickly as their four legs can carry them. How, exactly, dogs naturally know what bacon is, let alone naturally crave it*, I don't pretend to understand.
What I do know is, according to this commercial, if you open up a bag of Beggin Strips, you'll have every freaking dog in the Free World rushing to your door to get at it. And this is a good thing?
*I've often wondered this about cats and fish, too. Do cats really crave fish? Is that just instinctive, because it seems to me that the only way domesticated house cats would ever consume fish is if it were served to them by a human. Do they really like fish more than other meat, or is it a Mice and Cheese-style myth? Do I just have too much time on my hands, or what?
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I've also noticed what seems to be an increasing effort to imbue pets with human qualities.
ReplyDeleteOne ad I've seen recently refers to dog and cat owners as "pet parents." I'm sorry, but I'm not buying that -- a dog or a cat is not a family member and its care is not as important as caring for a child.
I'm not advocating animal cruelty or anything like that. I'm just stating that pets are not people. Until I started seeing these ads I would have thought that it was obvious.
You are going to get a lot of "thumbs-down" for your post, FirstRepublic. I've noticed that there are two things you can't post on the internet without being attacked- any suggestion that pets are not People in pretty much every respect, and any criticism whatsoever of Howard Stern.
ReplyDeleteThat is a good point; fried bacon or fried anything isn't anything that a dog would be exposed to without human intervention. A particular dog might develop a taste for it but it's not hard-wired into its brain.
ReplyDeleteThat "pet parents" thing annoys the hell out of me too. I have five dogs. I love my dogs and they each have wonderful and unique personalities, but I own these dogs, I did not "adopt" them.
ReplyDeleteMy main argument to people who go all "pet-parent-y" on me is: "Then I don't need to pick up his crap in your yard. He's an adult dog, that's his responsibility."
They can't argue back because then they have to counter with it being my responsibility as the owner.
With cats and fish, I think fishing is at least an inherited behavior for cats. I remember a comedian who was mocking an ad for "Crave" cat food. The ad had a line about Crave containing "all of the things cats crave," and then rattling off a list that included beef and chicken. The comedian suggested a more accurate list of cats' cravings would include bugs and mice.
ReplyDelete