Trends and Fads: Pocket Pets and Teacup Dogs – The Cycle Continues.
Fads and crazes have long been prevalent, from hamsters in the 1930s to pocket pets and teacup dogs today.
As soon as the pet trade and animal breeders feel that the market for animal adoptions has become stagnant, they have long used fads and crazes to keep gullible pet buyers engaged with buying pets – beginning with the hamster in the 1930’s to pocket pets and teacup dogs now. Pet trade workers are master manipulators by creating new species of animals to sell using social media marketing techniques that make the creature an absolute must have!
Crazes for certain kinds of pets often take hold in the United States and often follow celebrity photographs with certain breeds of dog that cause an instantaneous rush to acquire said breeds.
Movies often play an insidious role in our animal purchasing decisions, particularly animated ones that target children urging their parents to give in to their requests for certain animals. I recall in the 1980s how Ninja Turtle movies inspired an unwise surge in baby turtle popularity that drove pet retailers mad – forcing coerced parents into purchasing these tiny creatures without regard for long-term needs and problems that might arise as a result.
At London Heathrow airport I was working as an Animal Quarantine Station inspector, witnessing these beautiful little creatures being bred and shipped in large numbers from America in aircraft holds. 200 turtles would fit into each small cardboard box that flew worldwide meeting demand; many died or were squashed en-route while thousands more died after purchase or were abandoned into waterways when they became too large for humans causing environmental and health issues.
In the late nineties, Alvin animated films inspired an incredible fascination for chipmunks or small side-striped squirrels known as chipmunks as pets; then in 2010, an advertising campaign led people to purchase meerkats as pets!
Euromonitor reports show that 2016 saw the US pet trade benefiting greatly from two animated films, Finding Dory and Secret Life of Pets, that captured public imagination through their success at attracting interest, attention and investments for new and existing pets according to Euromonitor reports. Both movies grossed nearly US$2 billion between them – showing just how easily people become hooked into buying animals on impulse! It is alarming how easily we become attached to live creatures!