Today's You Are Dumb!

[windelina]

'Furbabies' Is A Killing Word

Memo to rich people with dogs: YOU ARE DUMB.

Really dumb. I mean really, really fucking dumb. You have to be really really fucking dumb, by the laws of our capitalist society. You must be so dumb that you are willing to pay exorbitant prices to pamper your coprovorous barkmachine in ways that utterly defy even the little I know about canine nature. Because if you didn't, I wouldn't be able to see the website for the Top Dog Country Club.

Bit of backstory. I was listening to Air America, which, as talk radio goes, has two unique qualities. First, it's full of lefty ranting. And second, they'll take advertising from anybody with ten bucks and a cassette tape. Penis-enlargement, unions, good-parenting advocates, and any number of other hopeless causes. And an ad for the Top Dog Country Club. An ad that, when I heard it, I assumed at first it had to be a parody. But it's all too real.

Located in the deep outer-ring suburbs of the Twin Cities metro area (out past Excelsior, for you locals), the Top Dog Country Club is, as it claims, more than a kennel. Gratuitiously more. Needlessly more. DUMB more. The site's opening Flash animation, in fact, gives you an idea of how much more. ACTUAL FLASH QUOTE TIME!

"Somewhere between the flirting, the 5-6 hours of play time everyday, the party favors and the birthday cake, the pool parties, and take-off and splashdown, listening to Frank Sinatra, the dance lessons, the massages, and the bedtime stories, you realize this place is nothing like a kennel." - No, it's more like some PLANET OF THE DOGS nightmare world where humans are reduced to slaves, providing bored puppies with more and more sybaritic entertainment to sate their decadent Roman Empire desires.

They call it "Club Med for Dogs". Dogs don't need a Club Med. They are dogs. They're not tiny, furry people. They're a whole separate species, with their own separate needs and desires apart from human ones. Among the things dogs do not fucking well need in the slightest:

SUITES: While I can understand, perhaps, not wanting to put your companion in a tiny cage in a kennel for a week while you visit the Bahamas, there has got to be some kind of middle ground between that, and these fucking Top Dog "suites". With heated faux-stone floors and piped-in Frank Sinatra music. They're not quite as fancy as the descriptions make them sound - the pictures on the website make them look a bit like Martha Stewart's prison cell - but still. Suites.

FANCY BEDS: Specifically, "orthopedic beds with tapestry covers on custom-made wrought-iron frames". If your dog can tell the difference between a tapestry bed-cover and a ratty cushion on the floor, then you raised that dog to be a prick. And he learned it by watching you.

FULL-SIZE HEATED SWIMMING POOL: I have no words.

BEDTIME STORIES: They're DOGS! They don't speak ENGLISH! At most, they can be trained to respond to maybe a dozen or so different words, and they're almost ALL VERBS. This makes narrative a challenge. Did I mention that these people are being paid what I presume is an obscene amount of money (since their website studiously avoids the subject) to read bedtime stories to dogs? Because I'm not entirely sure I can stress that enough.

BIRTHDAY PARTIES: Studies of wild dogs have shown that rarely, if ever, do they keep track of the date. Rarely, if ever, do they mark the passage of time since their birth. And they never, EVER manufacture and wear pointy paper hats, bake cakes, or light candles. Yet it seems that the staff of Top Dog Country Club is more than willing to impose all these things and more on your dog... for a price.

The "testimonials" page says it all, really. Many of Top Dog's customers think their pets are actually small children."What a joy it is to return to two puppies with smiles on their faces...I would leave my girls with no one else!" - "I have never felt good about leaving my 'furbabies' when I go on vacation..." - "I turn on the road to Top Dog, then she starts her excited puppy dance."

I will spare you the one written from the dog's point of view, because I care for your tender brains. But the fact is, shit like this "country club" ain't for the dogs. They're for the owners. Dogs do not make a huge distinction between "fresh-baked apple-cinnamon biscuit" and "their own vomit". Their owners do. Dogs do not choose a half-hour massage and a bedtime story. Their owners do. You can care for your pets, even pamper your pets, without being completely fucking obscene about it. Well, I could. You can't. Because you're dumb.

Comments

[revdj.livejournal.com]

This is the part that made me chortle with loud glee:

Dogs do not make a huge distinction between "fresh-baked apple-cinnamon biscuit" and "their own vomit".
--------------
BEDTIME STORIES: They're DOGS! They don't speak ENGLISH! At most, they can be trained to respond to maybe a dozen or so different words, and they're almost ALL VERBS. This makes narrative a challenge.

But not an insurmountable challenge!

Assume dog's name is spot:

Spot sit! Good Spot. Good, good Spot. Spot heel. Spot run. Good, good spot. Spot sic 'em! Spot sic' em! Spot dinner time! Dinner time! Dinner time! Heel. Heel. Sit. Good Spot.

[purplesquirrel.livejournal.com]

The kind of people who'd send their dog to a place like this would never, ever consider naming their furbabies "Spot."

[morgana-lafey.livejournal.com]

Good point!

[hellziggy.livejournal.com]

I used to have a cat named Spot. And this was years before Data named his cat that...
The other 3 kittens were named Rover, Fido & Lassie.

[burnunit.livejournal.com]

look at it another way for a moment: these people are hopelessly smitten with their dogs and they have all this damn money. It's not pretty, but there's a level where they could use some compassion. Not to put too fine a point on it: given the choice between avoiding your scorn and being able to pick my Kelgrin up at an insanely overpriced boarder even One more time, I'd take the kennel and as much mockery as you could muster. Of course, if a rich person's kennel could raise the dead, perhaps even you might be okay with it. :-p

[ethel.livejournal.com]

Hmm. While I agree with you about most dogs (let's leave out those with separation anxiety for the time being) don't need this level of care and things like this kennel are certainly for their owners and not for the pets, look at it like this:

The owners aren't abusing their pets. They're not starving them, leaving them in the cold, neglecting their care, or leaving them out on a tie all day long. They're attempting to care for their animals in the best way possible, even if their efforts may be a little misguided.

Animal care is a place to pick and choose your battles and rants wisely. This, in my humble opinion, is a, "Meh. Who cares?" I'll save my rant for the next case that comes in where the ex-boyfriend puts the cat in the oven for revenge against the ex.

[ethel.livejournal.com]

Why is it wasting? If it buys the owners peace of mind, that's money well spent, even if the price tag is high.

Now keep in mind that even my separation anxious dog (she is, according to one of my vets, the "definition of neurotic") gets the barebones kennel when she gets boarded. I'm not saying it's exorbitant -- just not a complete waste. It's doing no harm and some good, so what's the problem?

[ethel.livejournal.com]

um, that should be "not exorbitant". Oops.

Also, for the record, if I were leaving on an extended trip of a week or more and was able to plan for it financially in advance, I'd consider leaving my dog at an upscale kennel. Not because I think she needs wrought iron beds, but she is neurotic and would do well with more human interaction. She drops weight like crazy when she gets worked up, and I wouldn't want her going for a week or more picking at her food. I also wouldn't want her to come back to me with lick granulomas from stress.

[ethel.livejournal.com]

Oh, you get no argument from me. Party hats and wrought iron beds are over the top. I can see benefit in music playing (often a calming influence on neurotic dogs), bedtime stories (same thing) and a swimming pool (labrador happiness, anyone) but party hats?

However, if the owners want it, I see it as "no foul, no harm." Pet owners who lavish too much care on their animals is near the bottom of my list of pet owner rants.

[ethel.livejournal.com]

(oh, and for the record, there are some border collies that have a 300+ vocabulary, including nouns and verbs. I've seen documented cases where you can tell a dog to "put the ball in the basket" and it will do just that, picking out the ball and the basket out of numerous objects on the floor 9/10 times, which is roughly equivalent to the success rate of your average toddler, given the same directions.)

[luno.livejournal.com]

This is just a guess, but I've got a hunch that the folks who put their animals in a place like this are the same ones that decide to have a dog, rather than children, "because they're too inconvenient".

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

Not to be confused with the people who introduce their cats to you as their children, of course.

[ethel.livejournal.com]

*raises hand*

Second thoughts

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

Well, let's be honest - dogs are a lot more convenient than kids, and I've raised both so I do know WTF I'm talking about. The kids can be more rewarding, but they're a lot more work, and there's no guarantee that the kids will grow up to give you the kind of unconditional love you get from a dog.

I have no problem with somebody who's chosen to have a dog instead of a kid. It shows a lot more maturity than we see from a lot of people who do have kids and then 1) expect everyone else to indulge their spoiled brats the same way they do or 2) expect everyone else to raise their children for them because "it takes a village, doesn't it?" or (worst of all) 3) neglect the children completely while trying to carry on with the same party scene they were into before the kids came along.

Re: Second thoughts

[ethel.livejournal.com]

Amen to that.

"Hi, I'm Ethel. I'm 27, a dog owner, and I had a voluntary tubal ligation in January."

"Hi, Ethel.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

This isn't too different, imo, from the people who blow hundreds of dollars on keeping their ancient, sickly cats alive for a few more months when it would be far more merciful to put the poor creatures down. We all know these people, too.

Then again, I am not now (nor have I ever been) a cat person.

[morgana-lafey.livejournal.com]

Wow, that place sounds like a ridiculous indulgence for people with too much money. You are right, these things are not for the dogs, but for the owners. Not because dogs are stupid, disgusting creatures, but because they live in a world that does not revolve around silly human contrivances such as birthday hats. Dogs are also not snobby, as some people are, and they don't care if the bed is custom made or the biscuits are brand-name. More people should be so down-to-earth.

I have to say, however, that most dogs (at least dogs that receive enough attention from people so that they can pick up our language) have larger vocabularies than "a dozen or so words." I've heard reports of dogs that can demonstrate recognition of over 200 words. My family's dog knows the names of the different rooms in the house, and we used to have a blind dog that understood commands like "go to the left" (and I don't mean when we were calling her from her left so she could follow our voices). Not that we'll see dogs writing sonnets or anything, but sometimes they seem to understand more of our language than we do of their's. At the very least, I can say that they are not dumb as their owners who pay for designer dog beds and think their dogs need to hear Frank Sinatra to go to sleep.

[morgana-lafey.livejournal.com]

Oops, I'm at work and got distracted while I was writing my post, so someone had already addressed the vocabulary issue before my comment went up. Sorry. For the record, I do consider dogs to be like furry, special children. I think that if you are going to have one, you should love and respect it and care for it as best you can. I do, however, make a distinction between what dogs like to do and what people like to do. While it certainly won't hurt your dog if someone reads her a bedtime story at the kennel, she would probably rather just have a good pet before curling up in a comfy bed, and wouldn't even notice if it's got a wrought iron frame.

[dangerdhotrod.livejournal.com]

i looked at the website and it was just very silly. my favorite sentence from the you are dumb post:

> No, it's more like some PLANET OF THE DOGS nightmare world where humans are reduced to slaves, providing bored puppies with more and more sybaritic entertainment to sate their decadent Roman Empire desires.

[jenx.livejournal.com]

Which is just what some people deserve to be. :)

[luno.livejournal.com]

Hah! You are my puppy slave! I shall drool on you mercilessly! Woof!