Feature Article |
How Rover Took Over
By Michael Schaffer
The notion that some Philadelphia pooches get treated a lot better than many Philadelphia humans won’t get any argument from G-N Kang. Kang, a co-host of Chio in the Morning on WRDW-FM, owns a Yorkie puppy and a teacup poodle. Now, you might write off as drive-time self-promotion the fact that Sammie and Regina both have MySpace pages and photographs taken by professional photographers. After all, Kang talks about them on the air all the time. But back home, she keeps the pair’s clothes on baby hangers in a mahogany armoire (“a wardrobe bigger than most kids’, with a full line of Halloween costumes,” Kang says), custom-makes garments for them, and at mealtime pops open a pet cookbook that features biscuits, holiday food and “poochie pizzas.” (“I have no problem sharing a spoon with them,” she says).
It probably goes without saying that she has a $300 bag from Juicy Couture in which to carry them around. Kang, 25, estimates that since she adopted the two pets in January, she’s spent $4,500 on their care and feeding.
Spoiling, of course, is a raison d’être for the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association (APPMA), the industry’s trade association. According to the group’s statistics, we spoil to the tune of nearly twice what we spent a decade ago: $41 billion this year, up from $23 billion in 1998. Twice each year, that industry is on display in mammoth trade shows sponsored by H.H. Backer Associates, owners of Pet Age magazine. The gatherings showcase everything from the latest offerings from Purina to more obscure retail goodies like, say, Bobbi Panter canine spa products, or dresses by Ruff Ruff Couture. In the previous five years, the press kit for this spring’s show says, the number of product lines specifically positioned as “upscale” increased sixfold.
The trade association — which obviously has an interest in making animal-oriented spending sprees seem as reasonable as possible — says the boom in business has accompanied a cultural sea change that will seem obvious to anyone who’s ever, say, trotted a pup into a Commerce Bank location and received a free doggie biscuit along with his or her cash: “Treating animals like kids is no longer looked down on,” APPMA president Bob Vetere said at his association’s even larger trade show, held last winter at the sprawling Convention Center in Orlando. “It’s considered to be taking good care.”
It might as well be the DIPPie credo.
Of course, “taking good care” is an evolving concept — for two-legged creatures as well as their four-legged pals. Scan a Philadelphia phone book from a generation ago, and you’ll find precious few gyms, but plenty of butchers specializing in thick, fatty meat. Likewise, at around that same time, the notion of taking good care of a dog was limited to keeping its Alpo bowl full and letting it out for a leak every now and then. Today, as humans buy organic, treat their blues with antidepressants, train at the nearest health club, and await an old age eased by hip replacement and angioplasty, it’s no surprise that the concept of taking good care of a dog has grown a bit more generous, too.
It probably goes without saying that she has a $300 bag from Juicy Couture in which to carry them around. Kang, 25, estimates that since she adopted the two pets in January, she’s spent $4,500 on their care and feeding.
Spoiling, of course, is a raison d’être for the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association (APPMA), the industry’s trade association. According to the group’s statistics, we spoil to the tune of nearly twice what we spent a decade ago: $41 billion this year, up from $23 billion in 1998. Twice each year, that industry is on display in mammoth trade shows sponsored by H.H. Backer Associates, owners of Pet Age magazine. The gatherings showcase everything from the latest offerings from Purina to more obscure retail goodies like, say, Bobbi Panter canine spa products, or dresses by Ruff Ruff Couture. In the previous five years, the press kit for this spring’s show says, the number of product lines specifically positioned as “upscale” increased sixfold.
The trade association — which obviously has an interest in making animal-oriented spending sprees seem as reasonable as possible — says the boom in business has accompanied a cultural sea change that will seem obvious to anyone who’s ever, say, trotted a pup into a Commerce Bank location and received a free doggie biscuit along with his or her cash: “Treating animals like kids is no longer looked down on,” APPMA president Bob Vetere said at his association’s even larger trade show, held last winter at the sprawling Convention Center in Orlando. “It’s considered to be taking good care.”
It might as well be the DIPPie credo.
Of course, “taking good care” is an evolving concept — for two-legged creatures as well as their four-legged pals. Scan a Philadelphia phone book from a generation ago, and you’ll find precious few gyms, but plenty of butchers specializing in thick, fatty meat. Likewise, at around that same time, the notion of taking good care of a dog was limited to keeping its Alpo bowl full and letting it out for a leak every now and then. Today, as humans buy organic, treat their blues with antidepressants, train at the nearest health club, and await an old age eased by hip replacement and angioplasty, it’s no surprise that the concept of taking good care of a dog has grown a bit more generous, too.
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