I hate the term “doggo”, mostly because they people in my city who use it tend to be the ones who let their dog off leash in every park and stand around on their phones not paying any attention to their dog’s behavior.
I confess I used to use Pet Parent on this forum a lot, just because I think a lot of people offering sits don’t own their home and I saw a lot of assumptions on the forum that people offering sits are automatically wealthy. I never use that term in real life, and at some point defaulted to the prevailing HO term.
Overall though, if the language someone uses to describe their home and pets sets you off, let it be a red flag and pass on the sit. I wrote my profile with a specific tone to attract the right sitters and TBH encourage sitters who probably aren’t a good fit to keep scrolling. I would hope other HOs put the same attention to detail into their profiles.
I don’t mind pet parent. Owner doesn’t fit well with me. Who owns a cat? The boys and the girls are ok as well. I’ve done that myself. But all the other Lovey dovey things ….. scroll on.
I refer to my dog and cat as my fur family, because they are…
If any sitter wants to pass on my sit because I refer to them as such, then feel free to miss out on 2 easy pets, a lakeside home on a private beach, and 25 mins from a major tourist attraction. We are not a match anyway.
When did this term begin and is it in widespread use in the anglophone world? I moved away from the US 30+ years ago and sometimes I become aware that an English word I’d never heard of before is in common use by adults and I have no clue when it was born. I admit that doggo sounds really weird to me because I don’t know the history behind it. This forum is the first place I encountered it.
Alternate question. So I applied to a sit near where I am sitting now, for the winter. She wants to meet at a coffee shop tomorrow, if goes well, I would come to the house. I went to check reviews on her and don’t see them. Could she be new to THS? I am wondering if everyone that applied is local.
Internet might not have started it, but that’s where most of these terms gained widespread use. Internet memes & pet videos on Twitter & elsewhere, popular animal-related accounts like WeRateDogs (“Say hi to your dog for me” & “12/10” ratings), etc.
Following animal-related accounts is a big past-time & expanded during Covid, along with pet ownership. Add in less people having kids/more ppl having pets in their place. It’s a shift so huge that gigantic companies are buying up vets and pet-related businesses like mad. (Including private equity investments in THS, as I just recently read…?)
Do some people go a bit pet crazy? Sure. Does that necessarily make them a red flag? Not in my experience. A red flag is someone who abuses their pet, not someone who thinks of them as beloved family members.
Personally, I’m grateful for pet-crazy “pet parents;” it’s brought me to THS & some wonderful sits, new human relationships, & lovely travels.
I don’t read too much into titles or labels regarding humans or the animals. I read the entire listing and determine if it sounds like a nice sit, in an interesting location, dealing with hosts who sound reasonable.
I actually just refer to them by their given names for example Otto Spot Charlie
I don’t assume anything about the relationship importance of a pet animal in the persons life
There’s a lot of loneliness in this world that animals fill And especially with more people choosing not to have children it’s paramount to simply be Respectful
When you arrive on a sit Treat them as you’re a custom to. I’ve had a fair number of dogs look at me like oh she’s treating me as a dog and quite frankly some of them appreciate it because I’m in touch with her nature and not expecting them to behave like toddlers
Any endearing language is fine by me, in fact I often use Puddy Tat when speaking of cats- probably a throw back to my Sylvester and Tweety Pie childhood!!
However my biggest green flag is when people use human names for their pets! I love a cat named Nigel or a dog called Alan
Yesterday, at the dog beach, I met two dogs, a Great Dane named Douglass and a Boxer named Steven, the owners were brothers whose names were Skippy and Grover. Skippy said they gave the dogs names they would have liked for themselves.
I’d never heard the term “fur babies” either until I joined as a sitter. We’ve sat for many homeowners who describe their pets as their “boys” and “girls”. In my mind those terms are for humans not animals but we just go with the flow ~ whatever the homeowner(s) want to call their beloved pets we’re totally fine with!
Same, much more original My fave is from SATC; Oil portraits of the dogs Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton (Burton..obviously a bulldog) My next pet’s getting a royal title and at least one middle name
My fave is from SATC; Oil portraits of the dogs Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton (Burton..obviously a bulldog) My next pet’s getting a royal title and at least one middle name