DOG MANIA
Family members and emotional companions, today’s pampered dogs occupy an ever-growing place in our hearts. This fuels a global market worth 300 billion dollars and raises an uncomfortable question: are we truly respecting them as animals, or are we projecting our own needs onto them?
Made up for fashion shows. Pushed around in strollers. Turned into Instagram stars. Enrolled in daycare, celebrated with birthday parties, welcomed under the covers. They are our “best friends”, dogs, which in many parts of the world have become full-fledged members of the family - inseparable adopted children with whom we eat, suffer, laugh and share our days.
It is estimated that at least one billion companion animals live on Earth, mostly dogs and cats, with a very significant share concentrated in Europe, the United States and China. In the Old Continent, almost one in two households owns at least one pet; in the United States, the share is even higher. Behind this phenomenon there is not only a growing market worth nearly 300 billion dollars, made up of premium food, accessories, medical care and dedicated services. Above all, there is a profound cultural transformation. Dogs are no longer merely the traditional guardians of the yard or helpers in the hunt. From the second half of the twentieth century, and with an acceleration from the 1990s onward, they began to occupy emotional spaces left open by social change: fewer children are being born, older people often live alone, and the number of single-person households is increasing.
Today, dogs continue to help us in many fields: we train them for sea rescue or truffle hunting; they are loyal companions to shepherds and park rangers; we use their extraordinary sense of smell to detect drugs in airports and even to identify possible tumors in patients. At the same time, however, they have become a daily affective presence with enormous emotional value: a domestic companion to be cuddled, dressed, fed and cared for. But when intimacy turns into projection, the dog becomes loaded with human needs and expectations. And we must ask ourselves: am I treating it as an animal, with its own needs and nature, or as an imaginary human being?
