Some people have pets they love. Some people have jobs they need that have long hours. The intersection of those sets is not empty. I guess I’m glad your life is so great that this isn’t a problem for you. Some grace for people not you may serve you well in life.
I too have neighbours who have no such concerns. One of them was within hours of me calling the RSPCA to protect their terrified, yapping lonely pup until another neighbour politely talked to them. [0]
Those people shouldn't have pets either.
It's a childish western obsession: grown people with lifestyle animals. It has only got worse as childish western people acquired puppies to process their pandemic loneliness that they left alone when their old lives returned, while serious (poor) people had to deliver them food.
[0] which in retrospect I wish I'd done, because it would have exposed rather earlier exactly why the small dog was being left on its own in a garden of a house where the family in question were not actually resident. The small dog was perhaps trying to communicate something that might have materially changed our behaviour.
There is a solution to this, though, and it is the solution that generations -- generations -- of people have chosen.
1) don't have a pet that you will have to leave alone for too long because it is cruel to do this just so you have a pet to keep you company when you have time to enjoy it
2) there is no 2)
I have plenty of grace for people in my life -- much, much more than you might imagine. I have no patience for people who treat the happiness of their pet as transactional and have created a service economy to support it.
Life is change. Many people get pets when they can take care of them. Then their job changes. I think you and I may differ on the meaning of grace and patience.
And pets can be a twenty year commitment. If the possibility of a dog having to end up in doggie daycare is so heinous a thought that one shouldn't ever allow it, then the answer is no one should have pets, because no one can effectively plan for that time. People move, accidents happen, partners leave, life conditions change, it is totally unavoidable.
I do not have a pet because despite having the space and working from home, I would be asking an animal to be lonely with me when it could be happier elsewhere, I would have to leave that animal in kennels if I needed to travel, and as a non-driver there are too many ways I have to travel where it is IMO inappropriate to take a pet.
This is not a thing that makes me personally happy. But it's the more ethical answer.
> Accidents happen, partners leave, life conditions change, it is totally unavoidable.
And pets can be found new homes in those rare situations.
Could you please stop posting inflammatory/abusive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
Just trying to think of how much change my dog has seen. She's been with us through college, two children being born, getting married, moving a few times, different jobs, a pandemic, more.
I still haven't needed doggy day care, but I fully understand how it would happen. There have been periods we've probably been lucky she hasn't developed behaviours (or bit me in my butt to remind me she still existed).
A couple years ago I got a puppy. At the time I worked from home. A few months ago I got a new job and now I have to go into the office. She spent the first two years of her life with me being used to me almost always being around. It would be cruel to suddenly leave her alone all day five days a week. What are you suggesting people should do in similar situations? Should I only work remote for the rest of her life? Should I have taken her from the only home she knows and given her to someone else who works from home?
So instead I should uproot her and move her to a new home with people she doesn't know. When they go through a life event like changing jobs, getting injured, having to move to look after a family member, having children, etc they should repeat the process and shuttle her off to another strange place.
> will you continue paying doggie day care out of consistency for her, or will you stop?
In that situation I'd probably continue but cut back. I've always paid for classes, private training, and other enrichment activities for her so this wouldn't be any different.
> Because if you stop, you're taking away someone and somewhere and maybe several other animal friends who she's formed an attachment to. For your own needs.
Parents do this to their children all the time. Should parents not move to a new city because their children would be cut off from their current friends?
> it's no different to dumping a child in boarding school
No, it's no different to dumping a child in public school or daycare. They get taken care of while I work and when my work day is done I can spend time with them.
> I think doggie day care is a sign of a society in ethical decline.
You've made a number of comments about doggie day care being immature or a sign that society is declining but you've never made a coherent argument for why that is. What is immature or unethical about wanting my pet taken care of when I'm unavailable, planning for that, and paying someone for the service they provide?
> I think doggie day care is a sign of a society in ethical decline.
If anything, it's a sign of the opposite. Before, people would just leave their dog at home all day regardless of the impact to the dog.
The fact that more people are now willing to spend money (and time to get the dog to daycare) so that their dog isn't left home alone is unarguably more ethical.
I accept that one can make this argument, but since not leaving your dog alone can be implemented in other ways (arranging to leave them with friends and family, arranging swap relationships with one or two other dog owners, etc.) I am not convinced by the whole dog parent/furbaby/school bus BS, which is infantile and indicative of a society that now prizes immaturity and low compromise.
The tone of this comes off as childishly provocative. Aside from that, it looks like you're assuming they are being conflated simply because they both end in "day care"? Is the underlying issue actually that you find the use of a term commonly associated with children to be offensive when used to describe animal care (reading your other comments)? That particular sensitivity is exhausting (but understandably common, given our psychology surrounding our children).
You're against leaving pets alone, which is reasonable, but your original premise is that using a service so that your pet isn't alone is also bad, for other reasons. You can certainly believe in both things, but you keep switching gears when it doesn't make semantic sense based on who you are replying to, and worse, you keep switching between normal writing and a flame-baiting style.
Wait until you see the dog daycare van in my neighborhood! It’s like a school bus that picks up and drops off your dog. And your pup will come home with a report card in the evening. It’s very cute and whimsical, but definitely a sign of the times.
> a nation that treats dogs as children is a nation that cannot possibly hope to condemn childish bickering, name-calling and flat-out toddler lying in its ruling class
I don't see how the two are related. How does treating dogs as family members prevent people from being politically active?
If you have pets you care about that much, take them with you or don't do the things that require you to be away. So much is about "I want" and refusing to accept reality. If you are away from the house for 12 hours a day then having a socially intelligent pet such as a dog is an experience you will simply have to do without in your life. If you want a pet, get some fish or a hamster.
...the hell? The discussion was about cost, and it wasn't an invitation for your strange take on what pet ownership looks like. Go spout that junk elsewhere.
I will continue to do things that require me to be away for periods of time, and I will continue to pay whatever I have to so that things work well. I feel no shame about this and the dogs are healthy as can be.
Some people have pets they love. Some people have jobs they need that have long hours. The intersection of those sets is not empty. I guess I’m glad your life is so great that this isn’t a problem for you. Some grace for people not you may serve you well in life.
My dog would bark if we left her alone. Wouldn't make a difference to us since we wouldn't hear it, but I refuse to subject my neighbors to it.
I've had neighbors that clearly had no such concerns.
I too have neighbours who have no such concerns. One of them was within hours of me calling the RSPCA to protect their terrified, yapping lonely pup until another neighbour politely talked to them. [0]
Those people shouldn't have pets either.
It's a childish western obsession: grown people with lifestyle animals. It has only got worse as childish western people acquired puppies to process their pandemic loneliness that they left alone when their old lives returned, while serious (poor) people had to deliver them food.
[0] which in retrospect I wish I'd done, because it would have exposed rather earlier exactly why the small dog was being left on its own in a garden of a house where the family in question were not actually resident. The small dog was perhaps trying to communicate something that might have materially changed our behaviour.
There is a solution to this, though, and it is the solution that generations -- generations -- of people have chosen.
1) don't have a pet that you will have to leave alone for too long because it is cruel to do this just so you have a pet to keep you company when you have time to enjoy it
2) there is no 2)
I have plenty of grace for people in my life -- much, much more than you might imagine. I have no patience for people who treat the happiness of their pet as transactional and have created a service economy to support it.
Life is change. Many people get pets when they can take care of them. Then their job changes. I think you and I may differ on the meaning of grace and patience.
And pets can be a twenty year commitment. If the possibility of a dog having to end up in doggie daycare is so heinous a thought that one shouldn't ever allow it, then the answer is no one should have pets, because no one can effectively plan for that time. People move, accidents happen, partners leave, life conditions change, it is totally unavoidable.
> then the answer is no one should have pets
That is definitely the more ethical answer, then.
I do not have a pet because despite having the space and working from home, I would be asking an animal to be lonely with me when it could be happier elsewhere, I would have to leave that animal in kennels if I needed to travel, and as a non-driver there are too many ways I have to travel where it is IMO inappropriate to take a pet.
This is not a thing that makes me personally happy. But it's the more ethical answer.
> Accidents happen, partners leave, life conditions change, it is totally unavoidable.
And pets can be found new homes in those rare situations.
> And pets can be found new homes in those rare situations.
The average lifespan of a dog is 10-13 years.
The average lifespan of a cat is 13-17 years.
The average tenure for a job in the US is 4 years.
It isn't rare. Can I guess you'd give up your child too if your job changed?
[flagged]
Could you please stop posting inflammatory/abusive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
Just trying to think of how much change my dog has seen. She's been with us through college, two children being born, getting married, moving a few times, different jobs, a pandemic, more.
I still haven't needed doggy day care, but I fully understand how it would happen. There have been periods we've probably been lucky she hasn't developed behaviours (or bit me in my butt to remind me she still existed).
But luckily for you are sure your definition is the correct one and therefore you sling it around in accusations.
A couple years ago I got a puppy. At the time I worked from home. A few months ago I got a new job and now I have to go into the office. She spent the first two years of her life with me being used to me almost always being around. It would be cruel to suddenly leave her alone all day five days a week. What are you suggesting people should do in similar situations? Should I only work remote for the rest of her life? Should I have taken her from the only home she knows and given her to someone else who works from home?
The solution is to find her a new home, yes. Sorry.
Why is that a better solution than paying someone to take care of her while I'm at work?
[flagged]
So instead I should uproot her and move her to a new home with people she doesn't know. When they go through a life event like changing jobs, getting injured, having to move to look after a family member, having children, etc they should repeat the process and shuttle her off to another strange place.
> will you continue paying doggie day care out of consistency for her, or will you stop?
In that situation I'd probably continue but cut back. I've always paid for classes, private training, and other enrichment activities for her so this wouldn't be any different.
> Because if you stop, you're taking away someone and somewhere and maybe several other animal friends who she's formed an attachment to. For your own needs.
Parents do this to their children all the time. Should parents not move to a new city because their children would be cut off from their current friends?
> it's no different to dumping a child in boarding school
No, it's no different to dumping a child in public school or daycare. They get taken care of while I work and when my work day is done I can spend time with them.
> I think doggie day care is a sign of a society in ethical decline.
You've made a number of comments about doggie day care being immature or a sign that society is declining but you've never made a coherent argument for why that is. What is immature or unethical about wanting my pet taken care of when I'm unavailable, planning for that, and paying someone for the service they provide?
> I think doggie day care is a sign of a society in ethical decline.
If anything, it's a sign of the opposite. Before, people would just leave their dog at home all day regardless of the impact to the dog.
The fact that more people are now willing to spend money (and time to get the dog to daycare) so that their dog isn't left home alone is unarguably more ethical.
I accept that one can make this argument, but since not leaving your dog alone can be implemented in other ways (arranging to leave them with friends and family, arranging swap relationships with one or two other dog owners, etc.) I am not convinced by the whole dog parent/furbaby/school bus BS, which is infantile and indicative of a society that now prizes immaturity and low compromise.
I don't understand how your alternative solutions are any different to taking a dog to a daycare location.
Are you conflating dog walkers and dog daycare?
And how is taking more care of your dog than used to be the norm indicative of now prizing immaturity and low compromise?
People are investing more time, effort, and money into their pets than ever before. That is the antithesis of immaturity and low compromise.
The tone of this comes off as childishly provocative. Aside from that, it looks like you're assuming they are being conflated simply because they both end in "day care"? Is the underlying issue actually that you find the use of a term commonly associated with children to be offensive when used to describe animal care (reading your other comments)? That particular sensitivity is exhausting (but understandably common, given our psychology surrounding our children).
Obviously you have never experience whining of a dog for hours because its owner has to go to work. Especially smaller ones with high pitched whining.
As I commented elsewhere, I have, and I have very nearly called the RSPCA on their owners.
I think these people should not have pets (not least because dogs fully can be trained to be happier alone).
If you work away from your home for long days, you should consider not having a social animal as a pet. Get a cat; they don’t give a shit.
You're against leaving pets alone, which is reasonable, but your original premise is that using a service so that your pet isn't alone is also bad, for other reasons. You can certainly believe in both things, but you keep switching gears when it doesn't make semantic sense based on who you are replying to, and worse, you keep switching between normal writing and a flame-baiting style.
Can you read?
> Pet care is less regulated than child care, but it too is subject to the Baumol effect. So how do price trends compare?
It's obviously a comparison between a highly regulated and less regulated market to try to identify the cost driver.
And it necessarily conflates them so that the comparison is meaningful. Otherwise why not compare it to, say, gardening?
Because gardening isn't a decent analogy for less regulated childcare.
Wait until you see the dog daycare van in my neighborhood! It’s like a school bus that picks up and drops off your dog. And your pup will come home with a report card in the evening. It’s very cute and whimsical, but definitely a sign of the times.
[flagged]
> a nation that treats dogs as children is a nation that cannot possibly hope to condemn childish bickering, name-calling and flat-out toddler lying in its ruling class
I don't see how the two are related. How does treating dogs as family members prevent people from being politically active?
This is the adult equivalent of sticking fingers in your ears and going "la la la, I can't hear you".
Because dogsitters can't charge as much
The label is shit, but I'd lump things like dog _boarding_ in and that has absolutely skyrocketed in price in recent years.
It's not something I'd directly compare to child care costs but it's not insignificant if you have pets you care about.
If you have pets you care about that much, take them with you or don't do the things that require you to be away. So much is about "I want" and refusing to accept reality. If you are away from the house for 12 hours a day then having a socially intelligent pet such as a dog is an experience you will simply have to do without in your life. If you want a pet, get some fish or a hamster.
...the hell? The discussion was about cost, and it wasn't an invitation for your strange take on what pet ownership looks like. Go spout that junk elsewhere.
I will continue to do things that require me to be away for periods of time, and I will continue to pay whatever I have to so that things work well. I feel no shame about this and the dogs are healthy as can be.