The Pet-Media Binary
by Michael Schaffer

One thing I learned from the various Google alerts I’d set up while reporting my book was that there are basically only two versions of the pet story in the press. Story one is the sad one: the abused, the abandoned, the homeless, looking up at the camera with hangdog eyes. From puppy mills to Michael Vick, there have been plenty of those stories lately. Story two is the opposite: the pampered pet tale, all about doggie yoga and kitty accupuncture and pet food that’s pricier than human food. There are obviously plenty of those stories around, too. One thing that struck me is how this binary–think of it as the pet version of the old Madonna/Whore dichotomy–has continued since the financial catastrophe. One minute, there are stories about massive suges in pet adoption. The next, tales of how pet owners are braving said recession in order to continue paying for blueberry facials for Fluffy. This nice post, from the recession-watching Boom2Bust website, captures both dynamics.

The thing is, of course: They’re both true. Some pet owners, often forced from homes and facing landlords who leave them no choice, are giving up pets. Others, who still have the choice, are continuing at least some of the spending they’d come to think of as normal. The same goes for spending on everything from bicycles to to vacations. But it somehow seems more dramatic when it’s a defenseless animal’s fate, or at least his afternoon at the groomer, that hangs in the balance.