Today's You Are Dumb!
Mar. 29th, 2005 12:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.
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.
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 07:23 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 07:28 pm (UTC)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?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 07:33 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 08:13 pm (UTC)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.