by chelsea schuyler

You may think poodle-squaring is funny.  And it is. It’s hilarious. Way to think inside the box. But why stop the humiliation at hair cutting?

Hair dyeing, now that’s where it’s at. I’ve seen a couple of dyed dogs in the pet store. They were both pink, and it just looked bad. It was frizzy, unnatural, and clashed with everything around, like a high schooler who dyes their hair matte black and wears yellow T-shirts.

But oh does it not stop there. Behold:

I know right?   China is all over this fad. Their pet stores are cheating, they’re dyeing tuxedo kittens to look like seal points so they can charge more, but they’re being hospitalized and stuff cuz they’re too little to handle the dyes and blah blah depressing. But the vets are getting all up in dey grill so hopefully all will be well eventually.

The latest craze is wild animals, which I can’t help but find much less obnoxious. I’m sure it’s an illusion, but it feels like a small step away from dogs as a fashion accessory, and is what people really want when they buy a real tiger. All the novelty and show-off factor without the huge, the urine spraying, and the killing of small children.

The best part of these websites are the comments, which switch reliably from OMG, How Cute! to You People Are Sick! and back again. With the occasional sprinkling of Dogs are beautiful by nature, and we’re stripping them of their dignity.

Dignity, hah! If we wanted them to keep their dignity we wouldn’t have turned them into shivering, bug-eyed, cowering rat stencils.  Dogs threw dignity to the wolves when they decided to hang with us. If Lhasa Apsos and Bichon Frises held on to dignity they would be eternally depressed to look like a cloud that stuck its tongue in the toaster in the first place, but they are totally happy, dofusey creatures and we love them for it. No, a poodle don’t know a panda from a poop.

But I do happen to be against dyeing, only because even if the dyes aren’t toxic or burning, the process takes hours, and I can’t imagine most dogs enjoying that. Dyeing cats, that’s just criminal. They don’t live for our approval like dogs, and they lick themselves clean for chemical’s sakes!

That’s all folks.  Fetch carefully.