Dog people more likely to treat grooming like a human makeover

Continuing some themes from my earlier look into dog people vs. cat people (click the "pets" tag at the end of this post to see the others), I've noticed that pet supplies stores carry way more grooming products for dogs than cats, in a much wider variety, and especially ones where the owner is like a 7 year-old girl giving a makeover to a poor younger sibling or a dress-up doll.

Here are the grooming products for dogs and cats at the website of PetSmart, the main pet store in America. There are 368 products for dogs vs. only 60 for cats, and the dog products are less likely to be utilitarian and more likely to be striver salon-quality makeover products (loads of "premium" shampoos and conditioners, various salon scissors and clippers, etc.).

You can also tell by the brands who sell to dogs vs. cats. SWPL favorite Burt's Bees offers 11 products for dogs and 0 for cats (their own website shows some for cats, compared to a much larger selection for dogs, but PetSmart's selection must reflect how in-demand they are -- not very much for cat owners). And CHI, one of those "affordable luxury" salon hair products for human beings, offers 36 items for dogs vs. just 1 for cats.

See as well the difference between the in-house grooming services that they offer for dogs vs. cats. For cats there are 10 services offered, but 27 for dogs. The cat services are mostly utilitarian -- bath, brush, trim coat, trim nails, clean ears, etc. The only airheaded service is aromatherapy -- who knows, maybe it's just letting your pet get high on catnip while you browse the store. The dog services also include utilitarian things, but they have far more airheaded services than for cats -- aromatherapy, scented cologne, "premium" salon treatment, skin moisturizers, pedicure, sculpting facial hair, adding fur extensions, colored nail polish, and decorating your poor poochie's fur with wacky color patches and jewels.

Now, people who live with dogs come in two types -- dog owners and dog people. Certainly these weird services and products are only reflective of the dog people, who fixate on their pets, rather than those who just live with dogs around. But the dog people are becoming more of a majority of all those living with dogs.

And their weirdness cannot be blamed on their obsession with their pet, as opposed to merely having animals around. Cat people are almost all doting pet owners, aside from a tiny minority of rural folks who may have barn cats around who they don't show much attention to. And yet being so focused on their pets doesn't make cat people feel like dyeing part their pet's coat purple, or sculpting its facial hair as though it were a garden hedge, or cleaning its fur with an oatmeal shampoo and milk bath conditioner.

I attribute this different attitude toward a more liberal moral sense among dog people than cat people, which includes having a lower disgust response and a lower sense of preserving what is sacred. Warping a living creature into such an artificial abomination against nature -- a perfumed poodle with painted paws -- cuts so strongly against the conservative sense of sanctity, purity, and the organic.

The picture only gets worse when you look into the clothing & accessories offered for dogs vs. cats. Only 16 cat items, but 465 dog items. Most of the cat items are really occasional costumes -- giving it a Santa hat or an ugly Christmas sweater (hipsters and actual creative types are more likely to be cat people; see earlier pet posts). Dog people, on the other hand, dress up their pets in human-type clothing -- parkas, tank tops, dresses, swimsuits, and shoes.

Dog people, like liberal-brained people in general, seem to be more arrested in their development. That would account for their more liberal morality (conservatism grows with age), and their peculiar childlike way of making their pets the victims of a cartoonish dress-up / makeover game.