On this week’s episode, we address a big question—do you treat your pet like a human? And if so, are you doing more harm than good? Lura Forcum has done significant research in this area and joins the podcast to help us determine the unintended consequences of pet parents doting on their fur babies. We review the financial strain and debt many Americans incur, the marketing industry that’s making bank, the healthcare decisions that cause pain instead of alleviate suffering, and the numerous ways thinking your pet is just like you does more harm than good.
Lura Forcum is Director of Marketing Communications at State Policy Network. She is responsible for designing, planning, and implementing marketing and content strategies to communicate with SPN’s various audiences. A consumer psychologist and former marketing professor at Clemson University, her research examines why we treat non-humans like people but sometimes struggle to treat other people with humanity. She has also consulted with nonprofits and think tanks to increase their marketing effectiveness using insights from social psychology.
TRANSCRIPT
Beverly Hallberg:
And welcome to She Thinks, a podcast where you’re allowed to think for yourself. I’m your host, Beverly Hallberg. And on today’s episode, we touch on a personal topic for me and maybe for you as well. The big question today is, do you treat your pet like a human? And if so, are you doing more harm than good?
Well, we have a wonderful guest who’s done significant research in this area, and she’s going to help us determine the potential unintended consequences of pet parents doting on their fur babies. We’ll look at the financial strain and debt many Americans incur, the marketing industry that’s making bank, the healthcare decisions that cause pain instead of alleviating suffering and the numerous ways thinking your pet is just like you does more harm than good.
But a little bit about Lura before we bring her on. Lura Forcum is the director of marketing communications at State Policy Network. She’s responsible for designing, planning and implementing marketing and content strategies to communicate with SPN’s various audiences.
A consumer psychologist and former marketing professor at Clemson University, her research examines why we treat non-humans like people, but sometimes struggle to treat other people with humanity. And it is a pleasure to have you on, Lura. Thank you so much for being here.
Lura Forcum:
Hi Bev. Thank you for having me.
Beverly Hallberg:
So my first question to you is, are you a pet owner and what made you delve into this research?
Lura Forcum:
So I am a longtime horse owner and I now have a cat. It’s really more of my kids’ pet than mine. So my answer is sort of. And it was actually my experience riding horses and competing them that led me to start asking questions about what exactly is going on in my horse’s mind, and can we partner together to meet my competition goals?
So that was a lot of my interest, but it also dovetailed with my research in social psychology and marketing because a lot of people would tell you that they see their car or their computer as being a little bit like a person or having a human mind. So when you start thinking about all of the places where you might perceive a human mind that’s not there, you could think about products or brands and you could even think about pets.
So clearly they have some kind of mind, but it’s not a fully human mind. And so for me, the interesting question is, does it matter if that mind isn’t exactly like a human mind? And what does it mean for a pet’s wellbeing and for owners’ wellbeing?
Beverly Hallberg:
And so your research really talks a lot about individuals who treat their pets like family and assign human traits and preferences to them. So what is the trend? I mean, I will put myself a little bit into this category. I do not call my dog a fur baby, but he has had a birthday party, he does get pampered in a lot of ways, and sometimes I think he is a human when he is not. But how common is that, and how far does it go with so many people in how they interact with their pets?
Lura Forcum:
So it can be a little bit difficult to measure things like this because of course when I stop people on the street and say, do you think that your pet has a human like mind? They would say no. But we can see some other indications of this behavior where it indicates something about how people are seeing their pets.
There was an article in the New York Times a few years ago that talked about dogs going from sleeping outside to in the owner’s bedrooms and in the owner’s beds, which is perhaps also an indication about this changing relationship.
So it can be hard to get an exact measure, but I think we can all agree when you see people bringing their dog with them to brunch, that maybe we’re changing how we see our pets and that relationship, where it’s gone from something that was definitely not human to maybe something a little closer to a human stand-in, a child stand-in even.
And so yeah, we see a lot of different indications of that relationship changing. One of them certainly is the amount of money that’s being spent on pets. So in 2021, that was $123 billion. This is more than men spend on their clothing in a year for comparisons purposes. So maybe not more than women spend, but this is a significant amount of money being spent in this category. It’s growing every year.
A large chunk of that is money spent on vet care. And another, as you might imagine, quite a significant chunk about $50 billion is spent on food and treats. And so we’re spending more and more, and I think we need to ask ourselves whether it’s benefiting our pets the way we envision.
Beverly Hallberg:
And to break that down a little bit more, I want to touch on the individuals who are treating their pets more like humans. Are you finding that a lot of single people do this, maybe somebody who’s lost a spouse, maybe it’s a couple who doesn’t have kids? Is there usually a childless home that does this?
Lura Forcum:
So there is research suggesting that people who are lonely are more likely to see their pets as human-like. And that might be because they are widowed or because they’re single or child free. But research by Cacioppo, Waytz and Akalis suggests that yes, it is a function of being lonely. So that is part of what’s going on. There are probably also cultural effects as well.
Beverly Hallberg:
And so how long have we been seeing this trend? I guess if I think back maybe like 50 years, I doubt there were fur babies at that time. You’d have animals on the farm or most animals were outside animals, perhaps. How much have we seen this trend change over the decades?
Lura Forcum:
So it’s hard to put a start date on this phenomenon. As early as late 2000, well, early 2000s, we were starting to see some decreased vaccination, which possibly is because of links between vaccination and autism that have since been debunked. And so to me that suggests that people were starting to see some similarities, some parallels between dogs and humans.
You probably could also attribute some of this growth to being driven by social media where you had more people displaying this way of thinking about their pet. So whereas prior to social media, it would’ve been hard to tell that people bought certain products or treats or experiences for their dog, now it’s much more visible. Or the fact that, no, I expect that my dog sleeps in the bed or I expect that my dog is inside during the day and not outside, all of those things are more visible in social media than they would’ve been prior to that.
Beverly Hallberg:
And any correlation to the increased amount of singles who live in urban areas. And we know that if you live in Washington, DC, or New York, the likelihood is you can’t afford a backyard. And so people have to have their animals inside. Is there any correlation to the increased living in urban areas, of course, pre COVID?
Lura Forcum:
That’s a great question. I haven’t seen that investigated, but I certainly think that that would be a driver.
Beverly Hallberg:
So let’s get into the impact on pets. I care about my dog, so I want to know if my pampering of him at times is dangerous to him. What have you found on the negative, of course unintended negative consequences on pets?
Lura Forcum:
So we could look at a bunch of different things, and I think I should first start by saying that I’m not a veterinarian. So while I’m talking about some things that have been identified as problematic for pets, these are questions that you should discuss with your vet if you’re considering changes with lifestyle or diet, any of these things for your pet.
But these things range along a continuum of severity. And so on one end, we could think about ways of treating your pet that are maybe not great, but also not really damaging. So there’s a really famous picture of a guy mountain climbing, and he has a cat hanging out of his backpack as he scales the rock and the cat is looking at the camera with an unhappy face. So maybe there are cases where we project our own preferences onto our pet, and the pet is not delighted. Maybe cats are never delighted. But the pet is not delighted, but it’s not really in danger.
There are other things, for example, in the equestrian community, there’s a big debate about whether horses are better off with blankets in cold weather or not. And so the argument against blanketing them is that they have evolved coats and protective mechanisms that make them comfortable in a variety of temperatures and that they’re actually healthier and safer without being blanketed over the winter.
The counter-argument is that they may live in climates where the coat that they have is not really appropriate. So here we’re at the midpoint of, it’s unclear if it’s good or not good to assume that. I think a lot of what happens is, as a horse owner I would tell you, I would go outside and feel cold and decide to go put a blanket on my horse.
So then at the more concerning end, we have things like in recent years, what I had mentioned about decreased vaccination of cats and dogs because of this link between vaccination and autism that’s been debunked. So people have been decreasing their rate of vaccinations for things like distemper and parvo, and both of those can be fatal.
There was a UK study that indicated that in 2016, the vaccination rate was 84%, and then just a few years later in 2019, it was down to 66% of vaccination for diseases like parvo and distemper. So those can actually lead to illness and death for pets when we skip those vaccines. So that is absolutely harmful. It can be spread to other pets, and in some cases the diseases can be spread to humans as well.
Beverly Hallberg:
And is there any link to vaccination and autism for pets?
Lura Forcum:
There is no reason to believe that pets would experience autism given the way that their brains function. Autism is a disease of a human brain that’s a function of its social perception. And so at this point, we don’t have any reason to believe that cats and dogs have social perception in the way that humans do. So there is no autism. And of course, the link between vaccination and autism in humans has been debunked repeatedly.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, I want to talk about the healthcare spending. You have some interesting data points on that, including people incurring debt because of healthcare spending on their pets. What is the latest data on that?
Lura Forcum:
And so, one of the questions has to be, if the animal is experiencing discomfort for a treatment for fairly severe illnesses, does the animal understand that that discomfort and unpleasantness is in the service of better health in the future? And so that’s not how animal minds work. That’s a complex decision that certainly a human would make in making decisions about medical care, but that a pet is really not going to be able to make.
So I think discussing with your vet about what is a reasonable course of treatment given what the animal’s experience and quality of life is going to be is really important. In some research or some data that we collected, what we found was that there was a correlation between people seeing their pet as a member of the family and experiencing financial distress and overspending on their pet.
And so I think it’s certainly the case that you might feel that you can’t say no to certain purchases for your pet if you believe that they are going to make your pet healthier or happier. And so I think it’s actually really important that we continue to do research in this area so that we understand which kinds of purchases and medical care and food and exercise, which of these things make our pets better off, and which do not.
Beverly Hallberg:
And of course, people have those hard decisions at times and trying to figure out whether or not they should do surgery on their pet, is there much of a life after this surgery if the surgery goes well? Is there anything you could say to somebody making that decision out there who is going to feel a lot of guilt if they don’t go through with the surgery, but are struggling to afford it? Anything at all that you could say from what you learned about how pets may view it as far as if they’re at the end of their life, they have cancer? Do you think pets want to go through chemotherapy, for example?
Lura Forcum:
Right. So I think what’s really important to understand here is that when we don’t know what another person or thing is thinking, or animal, the natural thing to do is to project our own desires and our own beliefs onto that individual or pet.
And so I think in a lot of cases where people are paying for extreme treatment, extreme medical care for animals at the end of their lives, they may be projecting their own desire, their own concerns about mortality onto their pet, their own willingness to trade some discomfort in the present moment for a longer lifespan. And so just being aware of that projection is really important.
I think that your vet can certainly help you understand what your animal’s experience is going to be like through treatment or following treatment. And it’s also just really important to know that animals perceive the world quite differently than we do.
And so in a lot of cases, animals that are sick, they will hide themselves or they’ll try to cover up injury or illness because it makes them vulnerable to predators. And so the idea that you would then take the sick pet and that it would be taken to medical treatments on a repeated basis at the vet’s office, well, that’s going to be extremely stressful. And we might not perceive that stress in the same way that an animal would.
So it’s just important to be aware that their brains evolved for different purposes from ours and that they work slightly different than ours, and that we really need to understand accurately how dog and cats’ minds and bodies work instead of just treating them like humans. I think it sounds like a better thing or perhaps a more generous or thoughtful thing to treat your animal as a mini human, but it’s doing a disservice to the animal if that treatment ignores the evolutionary benefits that this animal has gotten.
You could think too about something like clipping dogs with really heavy coats. So that was something that people in the South have done for a long time and continue to do in some pockets, but the current thinking is that those coats insulate their bodies from heat and cold, and that actually clipping them takes away that insulation property that the coat has. So the obvious intuitive answer is not always the right answer when it comes to making decisions about medical care or just daily care for your pet.
Beverly Hallberg:
And how do veterinarians fit into this? Because, well, I’ve always liked the majority of the vets that I’ve taken my dog to, care about my dog and treat us very well. It is still a way to make money. It’s a business, and I don’t fault anyone for making money on doing something that they’re skilled at, but I have noticed a trend when I’ve moved and I’m trying to find a new vet, one of the questions I ask is, if my dog is in pain and I choose not to do surgery, will you agree that it’s better to put the dog down?
And I’ve talked about that […] dog who has some deformed paws and legs, and as he’s getting older or struggling to walk, I’ve had vets who’ve insisted that I need to get him a wheelchair. I’ve had vets who have insisted that he needs to go to a water aerobics, even though he’s terrified of the water. He would be terrified of the water, he’d be terrified of the wheelchair. And so I find that there’s also this pressure, I think, from vets to move forward with treatment for your animals when it may not be the best thing.
Lura Forcum:
Yes, absolutely. And I think having a good relationship with your vet and feeling like you can trust your vet to tell you what’s best for your pet, even if that’s not the most profitable thing or the most pleasant thing for you, that’s what you would want to hear. And that’s something that you can determine through developing a relationship with your vet over time. And if you feel like you have a vet who’s doing nothing but pushing expensive treatments, not because they’re the best, but because they’re profitable, then certainly you should seek out a second opinion.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I thought something that was really interesting about your section that you did research on as far as the healthcare spending, you made this statement that you thought that perhaps people’s decisions would be they wouldn’t be spending as much money because they wouldn’t be distorted by insurance, that a lot of times in our normal human insurance industry, we never know how much something’s going to cost, so we just move forward with it. But even when people know the full cost and it could be thousands of dollars, people still move forward. Did that surprise you?
Lura Forcum:
Yes. So that actually was researched by some economists, Einav and colleagues in 2017. And what they expected to find when they looked at medical spending for pets was that this was decision-making that wouldn’t be distorted by insurance. So one of the concerns about insurance markets is that perhaps they lead us to over-consume medical care because the cost is discounted from what it would be without the insurance.
So in this study, what they were expecting to see was some sort of flattening of medical spending. So among humans, the vast majority of spending over your lifetime on medical care occurs at the end of life. And they thought, well, this is unlikely to be the case for pets because there’s not insurance to absorb those extra costs.
And actually what they found is that end of life spending is almost exactly parallel for pets as it is for humans, which really suggests to me that what’s happening is people are projecting their own preferences for these intensive, expensive, in some cases, painful end of life care because they have … Obviously, we all would want to live as long as we could, and we want to be with our pets as long as we can, but we just need to understand that pets and animals have different minds than humans.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, I want to take a brief moment to talk to you, our listeners. You may know that Independent Women’s Forum is the leading national women’s organization dedicated to enhancing people’s freedom, opportunities and wellbeing. But did you know that we are also here to bring you, women and men on the go, the news?
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Well, I want to get to some of the marketing side of this as we close out the conversation today. I want to start with what we were just talking about, and that is pet insurance. I have to admit, when I first got my dog, I did get pet insurance, ended up dropping it for a variety of reasons. How big is the pet insurance industry?
Lura Forcum:
That is a great question. I do not have current statistics with me on the pet insurance industry. We know it’s widespread.
Beverly Hallberg:
Let’s then talk about some of the marketing. There are pet birthday parties, you can get dog cakes, you can get, what is it, Puppuccinos at Starbucks, there is outfits for dogs. I mean, you go into PetSmart or a Petco and there’s so many products for dogs, many of which have nothing to do for their health and wellbeing, just outfits and Halloween costumes. What do you make of this industry?
Lura Forcum:
So this is the part that I actually enjoy talking about because I think that it’s a way to have fun with your pet that’s not going to make them worse off. So if you want to imagine that your pet, for example, would like to share some dog or cat wine with you, at the end of the day, this is a way to enjoy that relationship and maybe see them as somewhat of a human-like stand-in, but it’s not going to make them worse off. But this is a really fascinating category that we’ve seen expanding recently. I just think it’s incredibly interesting.
So yes, you can buy pet wine. You’ve been able to buy dog birthday party supplies for quite some time on Amazon. And recently I was in Target and I saw, and I think it was just dogs, a dog birthday party section that has special items for celebrating with your dog. So I think that that is really interesting. Pet costumes, pet bakeries.
We are seeing kennels, for example, where they’re offering very specialized services that are intended for your dog. So 15, 20 years ago, the kennel was a place you kept your dog when you had to go out of town. Now there are kennels that are offering things like a book at bedtime, extra-
Beverly Hallberg:
Aren’t there pet massages? Don’t they have spas for the pets?
Lura Forcum:
Yes. So a massage for your pet, a special run in a nearby park for your pet versus just being in the kennel. And I think the interesting thing here is that if we’re talking about your pet having an experience, an internal mental experience of daily life, it’s a really interesting question of, do they enjoy a birthday party? Do they enjoy a book at bedtime or being tucked in at bedtime? But it’s a really interesting market segment that is emerging here.
Beverly Hallberg:
And so it sounds like the moral of the story is as we think about ourselves as pet owners, maybe some of us do refer to ourselves as pet parents, is maybe there are certain experiences that you enjoy giving to your dog like a birthday party, maybe you both like Starbucks and that’s great. That isn’t going to necessarily negatively impact your animal, but there are certain things such as surgery on them at end of life, other, like you said, with the horses, the putting the blanket on the horse, it may not actually help them and actually harm them. So do you dissect it in those two different camps?
Lura Forcum:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think sharing fun experiences with your pet is a great thing to do and is part of enjoying being a pet owner. But there are cases where we’re projecting our preferences, and they’re not just these end of life decisions about should I pay for chemotherapy for a dog or cat with cancer, they’re everyday questions like, if I feel cold and I assume that my dog wants to be inside rather than outside.
Well, for certain dog breeds, that’s really not going to work very well because first of all, they’re not as cold as you are. And second of all, they really need that exercise, not just the physical exercise, but the stimulation of being outside to be healthy.
So just assuming that your preferences are the same as theirs is not going to be ideal. And it’s all kinds of things from temperature to how much exercise they need, how much food they need, and when they’re hungry. So I think for pet owners, the really key part is to be aware that in some cases we’re projecting our preferences and in some cases it’s going to make the pet worse off.
Beverly Hallberg:
So final question, does a dog on a farm from years ago have a better life than a dog in an apartment?
Lura Forcum:
Oh, that’s a tough question. In some regards, the dog on the farm certainly does because a lot of these dogs were purpose bred with a job in mind. And so a dog that was bred to be a guardian of a farm or to shepherd animals like goats or sheep, that dog had a job and it probably was in some regards better for them, even if that meant sleeping outside or even if that meant working really hard during the day. So I think it’s a difficult question to answer.
I also think that dogs are somewhat social creatures and they enjoy being close to us. So when it’s work from home and a dog in an apartment in Brooklyn, probably some of those dogs are living the high life while they are with their person all day, every day. So it’s a mixed bag. Some things are better, some things are maybe a little bit worse or we could do better on.
Beverly Hallberg:
Right. But I think it’s such an important discussion because so many of us, as you just outlined, spend a lot of money on our pets, obviously spend a lot of time, and we love our pets. So I think it’s important to realize that what we want isn’t always necessarily what our animal wants. We so appreciate your research and coming on She Thinks. Lura Forcum, who is with State Policy Network, thank you so much.
Lura Forcum:
Thank you.
Beverly Hallberg:
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