A significant portion of housesit listings refer to pets as ‘furbabies’. We had never heard of this term until housesitting - our late beloved pet was a dog.
Over 50 or so housesits we have come across a range of human-pet relationship types. It’s taken us a while to appreciate some unfamiliar relationships. From pets that sleep in same bed as their humans. To pets trained to work (whether actually or perceived). To former strays that one pet parent framed as ‘animals that choose to live with us’. There is no “right” relationship for owner-pet but it likely has significant impact on the housesitter experience. After some learning experiences then we now assess this as par of application decision.
How does ‘furbabies’ description influence housesitter decision to apply for a listing?
What other listing language have housesitters found useful in understanding human-animal relationship?
Personally I hate the terms ‘fur baby’, ‘pet parent’ and when animals die they ‘go over the rainbow bridge’. I say ‘dog’ or ‘cat’ etc, dog or pet owner and animals die, just like we humans do.
I loathe “furbabies” and “pet parent”! To my mind, an in-home domestic animal is one you want to share space with precisely because it is just that: An animal.
One example: My old cat (whom I had eventually to have euthanised). He was clever, sly, communicative, stubborn and often very, very funny. Was he my “baby”? Was I his “Mummy” ? Absolutely not! I loved him because he was feline.. He had feline ways and feline propensities, which we humans can never understand. Likewise with dogs - or any other animal.
I find it sad that some people can only connect with animals by re-modelling those animals as human infants. To my mind: Nope. Love and respect your cat/dog/sheep/rabbit/guinea-pig or whatever for the animal that it is, and care for it accordingly.
Quite apart from anything else, isn’t it a bit weird to push an inter-species breeding history..?
I’m on the same page and wouldn’t use this language myself. I don’t automatically dismiss these listings though. Maybe I consider it more of a yellow flag than a red one and will judge by the rest of the listing whether or not I think they’re over the top toward their pets…
I’m originally from California and fur baby is a very common term. I used it with my cat as well. It’s a sign of endearment usually meaning you would protect your pet like you would your human child. Even with other humans we all have terms of endearment with the ones we love. Probably different cultures show some terms of endearment are more popular than others.
DoggoLingo is a cutesy internet language used to verbalize our best friend’s thoughts. It’s somewhere between English and presumed dog-speak with a little bit of onomatopoeia sprinkled in. It is a fun, silly language - which should not inspire judgement and hate.
Frankly I think we all need a bit of childishness in our lives, with or without doggos.
Language changes. Back in the day when people were calling the object of their affection “mon petit chou” did they really think they loved a green leafy vegetable?
I sometimes use furbabies. I also think petparents is more accurate than pet “owners” to describe the relationship, at least in English.
Both the terms "pet owners’ and "home owners’ to describe “hosts” bother me for a number of reasons but I won’t hold it against the person listing a sit if I’m interested in staying in their home and caring for their pets.
…well, I think the answer’s quite clear: They gave birth to them. New tech, anything’s possible. I’m a proud ‘daddy’ too, but would never leave my babies… before harvest
Yeah. Sorry all, but this entire thread really saddens me to see here; I’m not really sure of its intent. To me, it just feels like an unnecessarily divisive one…an ‘ad hominem hand grenade,’ as it were.
It’s perfectly OK to decide not to apply for a sit because something about the listing turns you off — whatever that something is. It’s also OK to just leave it at that, ensuring no one gets villainized, mocked, or made to feel small for the way they think about the pets they love.
We had one sit where the HO described their cats in the listing as “fluffers” when we met her and got to know her we suggested she look up the term and change her listing. It was edited very quickly
NEVERRRRR!
I think it’s George Bernard Shaw who’s supposed to have said “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
I can’t say the words HOs use for their furbabies has ever had any “significant impact” on my sits. I haven’t done dozens of them, but it’s certainly not something I’d get hung up on. I’ve got absolutely no interest in human babies and I have no issue with a “fur baby”, nor is there, for me, some kind of substitution or “re modelling”. It’s just a term of endearment. One couple I sat for called their cats their “kids” or “fur kids” or something like that. They were lovely.
OK, I do think “doggos” is a bit silly. But do you hate “kiddos” too?
I don’t want a cat on my face in bed and if they’re fidgety it’s annoying, but the ones I’ve had curl up quietly on the end of the bed, I loved that. And my wee soulmate (there’s another word to trip you up, I guess) was a former stray who most definitely chose my family. It just took us a while to figure that out (guessing you haven’t heard of the Cat Distribution System either).
