December 13, 2015

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.

13 comments:

  1. You may be overthinking things. It's probably as simple as cats being much more likely to gore your stupid ass for trying any ultimate makeover nonsense than a more stoic dog.

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  2. No Sir,I think you will find that a lot of dogs like being groomed and enjoy the attention whereas cats don't.
    A dog is a friend who will love and go live with you anywhere.
    A cat is one who will live with any owner provided it is in the same property and area.Dogs are more "people friendly".

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  3. It's about the people not the animals.

    Dog people want a certain relationship with their pet -- treating it like a dress-up doll -- and choose a species that is most amenable to their wants. Cat people find that kind of relationship perverse and prefer natural companionship.

    So dog people wind up choosing dogs, and cat people choosing cats.

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  4. "cats being much more likely to gore your stupid ass for trying any ultimate makeover nonsense than a more stoic dog."

    "Stoic" meaning servile rather than stoic. Cats are the ones who keep their cool until pushed over the edge, while the little yipper-yappers are spazzing up and down the yard with no one around.

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  5. Eduardo the Magnificent12/13/15, 3:47 PM

    I'm with Michael on this one. Cats are creatures of routine, and are very OCD with their cleaning habits. They do NOT like to be cleaned, bathed, or clothed. Cat owners surely know this. Dogs, on the other hand, don't give a damn. They'll roll around in mud and dung and stay that way, as long as their owner shows them some love.

    Secondly, most of the dogs that are given the pampered treatment are small dogs. Large dogs are usually not treated this way. If you're going to tie your theory to dog people, it might be wiser to attach it to the type of people who get small dogs instead.

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  6. I've seen medium and large sized dogs at the PetSmart grooming "salon" having their coat treated like a garden hedge sculpture.

    Dogs may tolerate being bathed more than cats, but that doesn't mean they need "premium" products like oatmeal shampoo and milk bath conditioner.

    But again, the point is that dogs do not determine the behavior of dog people -- dog people's wants determine the kind of animal they seek out as pets, and how they treat them.

    If you're a 7 year-old girl looking to give someone a cartoonish makeover, you aren't going to choose a grown-up because they won't tolerate it. So you choose the helpless younger sibling or the doll that won't put up a fight.

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  7. I blame a lot of this on SWPLs treating dogs like children. (The children they'll never have.) You can't talk an urban swish into taking on the full responsibility of a kid, but dogs pretty much embody the "fun" parts of parenting: the grooming, the showing off, the parent worship, and the accepting of commands.

    As for cats, if they're less groomed than dogs, it's because (a) they don't like to be groomed beyond the occasional petting and stroking and (b) they're usually owned by low-effort types who don't want to have to do that kind of thing in the first place. One of the reasons cats are so popular amongst spergs, nerds and the socially awkward is because they don't require a lot of work to raise, don't pine for constant attention, and will pretty much take care of themselves. You can even leave them to their own devices for a few days. Cats will also focus their attention on whoever feeds them, leaving their geeky, low-self-esteem owners with the impression that they're speeeeeecial.

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  8. Jolly Jamaican12/13/15, 11:02 PM

    Agnostic, no matter how many of these posts you make, it won't change the basic fact that people view men who are into cats as limp-wristed, lisping homos.

    Just deal with it.

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  9. Everyone pictures faggots with their little gay-friendly designer doggies, not proud homophobic felines.

    http://akinokure.blogspot.com/2013/12/queers-are-dog-lovers-what-does-it-tell.html

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  10. "One of the reasons cats are so popular amongst spergs, nerds and the socially awkward is because they don't require a lot of work to raise, don't pine for constant attention, and will pretty much take care of themselves."

    The old post I just linked to above showed that autism websites regularly said dogs were better pets for spergs, and that cats were horrible for them.

    Cat people are more empathetic, shown by the higher cat-fancying of artistic and creative types, and poser creatives like hipsters, rather than among thing-oriented folks like engineers and poser "I FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE" geeks.

    It's more like cat people are more focused on fewer but deeper social relationships, hence the distant comparison to woman owners (when men and women own them about equally). Cat people, aside from the crazy hoarders, don't just ignore their pets and let them fend for themselves. If anything, they're more obsessed with their pets and more inclined toward clinginess with their pets, while being socially mature enough to respect their space.

    Cat people are probably more overwhelmed in large anonymous groups, which is why urbanites tend to be such dog people, while cat people are more suburban.

    Related to that is that cat people are more prickly with people they don't know (and sometimes with those they do).

    But none of that is part of the sperg syndrome -- just the opposite -- which instead predisposes to being a dog person (distinct from being a dog owner).

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  11. The GSS doesn't have anything about pets in its 40+ year history except for a question about whether or not a person has ever dogsat for someone else. It would be an easy question to include.

    Two things come to mind the devil's advocate: Dogs are more tolerant of being screwed around with than cats are, and dogs are much easier to show off to other people (dog parks, walks, etc) than cats are.

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  12. Many right-wing tough guys were cat lovers. Mishima, Jean-Pierre Melville, Pope Leo XII, Dr Johnson and Robert E Lee are a few that come to mind.

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  13. "Two things come to mind the devil's advocate"

    But neither of those reasons explains facts about cat people vs. dog people beyond the facts about grooming differences. We don't want separate lists of causes for each observation -- that doesn't explain anything, it's only rationalizing on a case-by-case basis.

    Liberal morality, orientation toward things vs. minds, child-like psychology, etc. -- those are causes that can explain a wide variety of observations about cat vs dog people.

    Also, why are dog people so eager to rationalize away the weird members of their side like ghetto thugs, faggots, etc.? Cat people accept that their side includes spinsters and other "crazy cat person" types. Neither side is perfect, and you take the good with the bad.

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