There are two kinds of people in Chicago – people who have a dog and people who want to have a dog. Dogs and their owners haunt me everywhere I go, and I’m not imagining things. In my home city of Brussels, seven in every 100 people own a dog, whereas here in Chicago, the number is 22 in 100.
In Brussels, or at least among the people I know, there is a general awareness that dogs are not humans and that, when treating them in a pampered way, you need to drop the occasional, pre-emptive self-deprecating joke as a signal to others that you haven’t lost your mind. The dogs are unquestionably supporting characters in people’s lives.
But here in Chicago, pets, and dogs especially, are the suns around which their owners orbit, and there is neither self-awareness nor embarrassment about this state of affairs. Consider the friend of mine, an otherwise entirely reasonable and pragmatic woman, who started taking her dog to “daycare” when she got a new job that involved spending a few days a week in a downtown office. But even then, before sending her dog to this care centre, she went in for a “try-out” afternoon.
Another friend told me her two cats were “the most important thing” in her life – and she said this unironically. Numerous other occasions with other friends have been either timed, or cut short, so that they could go and feed or walk their dogs.
In a city with world-class theatre, comedy and jazz scenes, an acquaintance recently suggested a day out at the beach, which on closer inspection turned out to be one of the city’s two “dog beaches”. I have also gone for a coffee at a place that had a “biscuit bar” for dogs on its patio, which consisted of a lidded box on wheels containing free dog treats. (There were no equivalent free human snacks.)
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That same day, I lined up behind a Senegalese food truck at one of Chicago’s famous street fests and found myself queuing behind an adult couple, each of whom was carrying a cat in a specially designed backpack. The friend I was with appeared to find the whole thing as preposterous as me – but it all came out later when she admitted giving her mom a book of dog treat recipes for Christmas. You think you know people.
Animal food is sold right alongside human food in supermarkets here. I have picked up a frozen pizza to inspect the label, put it back, grabbed the next thing on the shelf and discovered I was holding an item of dog food.
More than anything, though, I’m annoyed by the virtuousness that’s ascribed to pet owners. Sure, having a pet suggests a modicum of responsibility and an ability to take care of someone other than yourself but, let’s be honest, it mostly means you have disposable income. In the States, having or wanting a dog seems to make you an upstanding citizen, a dependable friend, relationship material.
I have precisely three friends who don’t have pets here, though one of them lives in a building that doesn’t allow him to keep pets (he volunteers at a shelter at the weekend to get his animal fix). A week ago, I launched into a rant about the city’s dog culture to one of my other non-pet friends, but after noting the polite smile on her face, I sputtered and fell quiet. Why doesn’t she have a pet? I finally asked, though I already knew where this was going. She replied: “I feel like I need to get a car first” – as if that was the responsible order of events: car first, dog second.
Clearly, if I stay here longer, I will need to make new friends, friends who have their Maslovian needs in better order. Or, perhaps America’s dog culture will win me over – wear me down if you will – and I too will soon be taking a four-legged, furry friend to daycare.
Linda A Thompson is a Belgian journalist and editor living in Chicago
