Study Proves Dog Owners are Lonely
People
by Carole Wade, Columnist
January 19, 2009
A
new scholarly study completed at the University of Chicago, where President-elect
Barack Obama was a professor for over twelve years, confirms my research concerning
“dog-ownership-worship.” Dogs -- along with ordinary inanimate objects
-- bring solace to human loneliness, but with the price of “dehumanization”
as proven by the prestigious team of psychologists and behavioral and social
scientists. The greedy conniving Seventy-Five-Billion-Dollar-A-Year Pet Industry
says it correctly: “We fill the gap in a human’s life.” In other
words, Pet Industry tycoons sell the fear of loneliness for cash and coax dog
owners into becoming more inward-looking.
The Pet Industry continually monitors lonely people through consumer trends analyses. Its executives formed focus groups to gather as much information as possible … and about ten years ago they began seeing a growing population choosing isolation from human stress. What a tremendous opportunity opened up for the Mega-Pet Industry! With this tool, the Pet Industry foresaw a growing population of lonely “stay-at-homes” and decided to aggressively sell the fear of loneliness through dog ownership. Dog worship then “wild-fired” -- pushing children aside. Corporations began giving their employees “pet-dog” health insurance programs instead of offering much more costly employees’ “children’s” health insurance.
The February 2008 issue of the Journal Psychological Science presents new remarkably important research from the University of Chicago where Nicholas Epley and his Harvard University colleague Scott Akalis document how people -- with a lack of connection to other people - can be channeled into viewing objects - including pets - for human-like relationships. Epley and his co-authors have published their findings about what scientists call “anthropomorphism.”
Over the past decade, I have observed huge numbers of solitary women and men staying home owning a dog -- being reinforced by the Pet Industry into living an isolated existence. And as the most frightened of these lonely people make all of their decisions alone (or by “consulting” their dogs), the more often they make bad decisions about their lives. Pet-dog owners would rather purchase needless objects for their pets than meet and talk to another human.
Pet Industry tycoons live in the same neighborhood as Bernard Madoff and they have now teamed up with interior designers to design dog furniture and backyard gardens for animals (notwithstanding the suffering of neighbors caused by constant loud barking). Expensive mega-dog carriers, pet insurance, doggie-spa hotels, special car seats for dogs, so-called “birthday bashes” for dogs, high-cost “organic” dog food, and cosmetic veterinary medical procedures all enrich the Pet Industry’s owners.
Tragically, the elderly are now going without food and medication in order to feed dogs that have been forced onto them from local shelters. Hospitalized patients are exposed to deadly STAPH infections when Pet Industry-sponsored “dog visitors” enter their hospital rooms.
The average pet-parent takes his or her dog-child to its personal veterinarian almost twice as many times as often as a normal human takes his or her child to the doctor! This is serious psychological dog-worship behavior. The new University of Chicago study says that talking to your “toaster oven” or to your “dog or some other object” may overcome loneliness … but this kind of behavior is not healthy. We all know that marital companionship has changed significantly over the past twenty years. More and more Americans remain single for longer periods of time. They also become single because of rising divorce rates. Lonely persons become dog owners after being pushed by the gigantic Pet Industry. Canines appear in every television ad from selling soap to selling pharmaceutical medicines. Fraudulent medical studies financed by the Pet Industry assert that dog ownership adds ten years to a woman's or a man’s life. In fact, dogs take away years from a human’s life by forcing women and men to become even more lonely. ***
About the Author: Ms. Wade is a writer who lives in Southern California. Her articles and comments appear frequently in The American Partisan, The Los Angeles Times (registration required free of charge), the Daily News, Internet newspapers, and monthly travel magazines. She also guests on the Al Rantel show and is the author of "Is Pet Ownership Destroying the Lives of Americans?" ***
© 2009 Carole Wade
COPYRIGHT © 2009 BY THE AMERICAN PARTISAN. All writers retain rights to their work.