A Pet Pampering Open Thread

Photo by Charles Deluvio 🇵🇭🇨🇦 (cropped) on Unsplash.

No Friday Chat this week, but I did want to share this NYT article about what people are buying for their pets, these days:

“Right now ‘Asian fusion’ is trending,” said Jorge Bendersky, a New York dog groomer, of a cut that was developed in Japan. Mr. Bendersky charges up to $300 an hour to style clients like Rita, Gisele Bündchen’s Yorkshire terrier, and Sophie, P. Diddy’s miniature Maltese. “That’s very short on the body and very long on the legs, like big bell bottoms, which gives them the opportunity to wear a dress or a sweater and necklace without messing up the hairstyle.”

Because dogs need the opportunity to wear a dress or a sweater and necklace without messing up their hair. (When did we start calling dog fur “hair?”)

If you don’t want to waste a free NYT click on the piece, you should know that it also includes a discussion of whether neutered pets should wear prosthetics to boost their self-esteem.

So. With necklaces and Neuticles as our starting point, let’s discuss the most fun/frivolous/unnecessary items we’ve bought for our pets — and whether they appreciated them.

In my case, I had a cat for several years, and right after I got her from the shelter I spent around $20 on a harness and leash because it was clear she wanted to explore the outdoors. (I also had this fantasy of being, like, the quirky-cool person who walked her cat.) You don’t need me to tell you how how that story ended.

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