Sometimes, when I actually sit down to write a post (after setting the topic ahead of time),my inner voice leads me down a tangential path. In other words, things go sideways.
That’s what happened this time. The chosen topic, ‘celebrity pets,’ was too broad – and my knowledge about the pets of celebrities minimal. Add to those facts the realization that I really only cared about the ‘celebrity pets’ who’ve paraded through my life over the years, including those dogs and cats currently living in my neighborhood. It makes sense, really; I don’t have cable television so I’m not much of a follower of celebrities, or their pets.
Thanks to Google, I found more information than I could ever want about celebrity pets. Of all the articles I scanned, “The Cutest Celebrity Pets on Social Media” was my favorite (despite the fact I didn’t recognize a single celebrity in the slide show).
Another article, “These Are the Most Adored Celebrity Pets of All Time,” frustrated me; the title was, I thought, overblown – I didn’t know George Clooney even had a pet pig named Max, who passed away in 2006. Despite my ignorance of who Spencer Pratt is, I did enjoy the embedded video of his hummingbirds (originally posted on Instagram).
Let’s face it; when it comes to celebrity pets, I only look as far is my own relatively small world. They are the cats and dogs I’ve fed, held, talked to, and loved unconditionally; not the pets of people I’ll never meet. Chances are good, I believe, you feel the same exact way. Our pets are the celebrities in our lives, and we treat them accordingly. In June of 2017, the pet toys market in the U.S. topped $1 billion (Source).
Christina Baldassarre, a guest author for Entrepreneur online article, affirms the number of pets in the U.S. has grown significantly in recent years–to 312.1 million. “Since 1994, the market has more than tripled in size in the U.S. alone.” Not only are the more pets, the owners of those pets are spending more money on them. “Dog owners spend an average of around $1,641 and cat owners approximately $1,125 per year” (Source)
No doubt about it, we love our pets. They light up our lives, give us affection whenever we’re in need of it, and always greet us like we’re the celebrities in their lives. There’s nothing quite like the relationship we have with our very own celebrity pets. It’s the reason why so many people will include their pets in their answer to the question touched upon last time, “What is Family?