Yes, these baked goods are for dogs
Last time I was riled up enough to comment on the pitiful state of American consumerism culture, the target was Domino’s: a national food chain that can sell us booger infused culinary delights and still have us calling each Tuesday for that 5-5-5 deal. But this time I’ve been excited by something much more local and entrepreneurial. A gourmet pet bakery can be found in almost any place where money grows on trees and the only way to tell the difference between houses is by their number, but in Los Angeles County, they seem to have the monopoly on senseless ways to spend money during a recession. They beat out other popular options including 2) seeing Watchmen a 2nd time to make more sense of it and 3) spending $700 for sold out Bruce Springsteen tickets (I have a feeling he’ll be around next year, guys). As noted in the previous post in this series, the theme stems from a Fareed Zakaria article in which the famous Newsweek pundit attempts to define why the Muslim world doesn’t seem to like American Idol quite as much as we do. Now, I’m adding gourmet pet bakeries to the list.
For starters, let me explain what exactly a gourmet pet bakery is. Indeed the first time I came across one, the combination of words seemed more like the brainchild of a particularly mind-altering game of Madlibs than a place to actually spend money. The concept is simple: because you never had kids (for medical reasons… more sympathy or for social reasons… less sympathy) and you spend the majority of your days and nights fussing over what your labradoodle is going to wear tomorrow, it is equally conceivable that spending money on something an animal can never thank you for, nor express it’s enjoyment of, is perfectly logical. When I was growing up, we never gave our cats the luxury of dining on wet food: only the hard stuff, and they repaid us by being mildly interested in our lives no more than 50% of the time. And that’s the way it should be, because after all, the only reason I do anything for anyone is to hear them say thank you so I can replay it over and over in my head during the rest of the time that they act ungrateful.
Don't feel bad if this cake is bigger than the one you had on your 16th birthday
Baking something usually requires a decent amount of work and planning. Therefore, baking anything for an animal that regularly enjoys eating its own shit at the behest of its owners seems a bit like rewarding a child for finishing an entire McDonalds meal all by his lonesome. Good boy! So if you’re wondering why Johnny Terrorist doesn’t hesitate to put anthrax in an envelope and mail it to a news anchor, stop for a moment and think about the last time you saw someone spending more money than you earn in a week on a cake for a dog that’s smaller than the stomach of a starving child living in the streets of a war torn country. That’s a bit heavy handed, I know. Your bulldog Duke really earned a peanut butter truffle this week. I’m as American as apple pie and I’ve done my fair share of border watching via the web, but do animals that can’t clean up after themselves really deserve gourmet food? Maybe they do, maybe they don’t but I assure you if fundamental Muslims ever get a hold of this one, there is going to be hell to pay for all of us. I take pride in knowing that the closest thing to gourmet food a pet will ever get from me is the leftover EasyMac that I didn’t finish so I could save room for an equally cheap and unhealthy food product, like a Little Debbie’s Cosmic Brownie.
Lifting Fog 
April 23, 2009 at 10:26 pm |
Ahem. :)
A large majority of our customers are people that for whatever reason or another have grown attached to their pet as much as a child. These aren’t Paris Hiltons toting their crystal collared Chihuahua in their Prada bag. They’re empty nesters, same sex couples, and people that have lost their human children due to some horrible tragedy. I’d say 1 out of 10 dogs that come into our store are wearing outfits.
Our treats aren’t “gourmet” or lavish. They’re just fresh made with good ingredients that people can feel good about giving to their pets that love them unconditionally. Do some eat their own poop or a old smelly shoe if given the chance? Sure. But that doesn’t mean we should let them.
As far as what the rest of the globe thinks: do some more research. There’s pet bakeries all over Europe. I have people overseas begging us to ship stuff to them. Not just froo-froo Europeans either: population controlled countries have seen a huge boom in the pet industry.
Look, I’m no crazy pet person. I get what you’re saying. I know it looks ridiculous and eccentric at first glance. But we have stuff for less than a dollar. Where can you buy anything for less than a dollar these days?
Oh, and that cake page you linked to? It looks like their cakes cost $10 (which is a deal). If you make less than $10 per week, no wonder you’re bitter and paranoid! ;)
April 27, 2009 at 7:38 pm |
My gosh, Lifting Fog these days is certainly doing good work as a magnet for the serious-minded. (Where oh where did you go wrong?)
You, even if no one else, will not be mystified when I tell you that the phrase “gourmet pet bakeries” made me think of “gourmet pet freezers.” And why that made me laugh.
April 28, 2009 at 12:26 pm |
You got served. As did those wonderful pets.
September 17, 2009 at 10:35 am |
why they hate us post possibility
our airlines spend $100,000 a year on lemons
http://www.kvia.com/Global/story.asp?S=11147184
July 10, 2013 at 12:12 pm |
[…] dog biscuits DJ Steve wrote way back when about the explosion of pet bakeries, which take the exacting, precious standards of human bakeries and apply them to our four-legged […]