Is Your Pet More Pampered Than You? How to Know If You're Taking It Too Far

About six months into the pandemic, I received a large white envelope in the mail. The paper was thick, dotted with real flower petals, and my name and address were handwritten in ornate, calligraphic script. It looked like a wedding announcement. But it wasn’t. It was an invitation to my friend Monica’s cat Horace’s sweet 16 Zoom birthday party. Monica’s always been wonderfully extra — creative and generous and completely unconcerned with others’ opinions — but this felt like a lot, even for her.

I RSVPed  “yes,” of course, and a few weeks later, I received a package full of party-related odds and ends, including a party hat, noise makers, cookies — Monica briefly considered having cakes delivered to everyone day-of, but decided that was excessive — and a hand-painted portrait of the birthday boy on a tiny canvas. 

When I entered the Zoom, I saw Horace in his usual spot under the window, surrounded by decorations, wearing a little costume, and flanked on either side by Monica and her boyfriend. A dozen or so people joined from across the country, all wearing the birthday flair Monica sent us. Monica commissioned a musician to write not one but two songs about Horace, and she performed them for us from her studio apartment in Brooklyn.

There were Horace-themed games and Horace trivia, which, friend that I am, I was very good at. We sang to Horace and watched Monica and her boyfriend play with Horace, and when he went to the litter box, we all sat around awkwardly in our little Zoom windows and waited for him to return. I logged off after that, but I wish I’d stayed a little longer because I ended up missing the pet psychic who logged in during the second hour to read Horace’s star chart.

Monica and I have been friends for over 10 years and in all that time, she’s only had one birthday party for herself and it was a timid affair at a karaoke bar with a few friends and one of the other lawyers from her firm. Nothing compared to the blowout she threw for Horace. 

“It wasn’t that bad,” Monica said when I told her I was planning to write about the party for this article.

“Yes, it was!” I said.

“OK, but Horace deserved it,” she said. “He was the best.”

That party wasn’t the only thing Monica did for Horace. She got him acupuncture and had him on a wildly expensive organic diet to control his weight, although she couldn’t resist giving him the treats he loved best. Before her boyfriend moved in, when she went out of town for work, she would hire someone to come stay with Horace and her other cat and make them send her videos throughout the day to prove they were being fed and played with at the right times. Money was no object when it came to her cats, and she seemed to derive greater pleasure from indulging them than herself.

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For their birthday or gotcha day or…do you need a reason?

Plenty of pet parents happily spoil their babies.

And Monica’s far from the only person who feels this way. “I have Korean skincare for my 20 year old cat,” commented one user under a recent post on the r/Pets subReddit. “Skin and body wash with ceramides, [which] contain catnip. Also a moisturizing skin and hair ceramide spray. All made for cats. [Meanwhile] I use Suave or Amazon basics for shampoo and whatever bar or shower gel I can get for cheap.”

“I am learning dog massage after my boy pulled some muscles!” wrote another user. “Got all the gear his physiotherapist uses and we're learning strengthening activities with it.”

I understand peoples’ willingness to go the extra mile for their pets. I’ve gone to great lengths to take care of my own cats, including spending up to 10 hours per week taking my cat, Pumpkin, to and from the vet for laser treatments on his ears, though I don’t really consider that pampering. That’s just doing what is required to take care of your pet. 

“Pets don't get a choice in being a pet, so responsible owners should be going out of their way to give them a healthy, enriching life,” wrote another Reddit user on that same post.

“I would do anything for my dogs,” wrote another Redditor. “Literally anything. They rely on me for their safety and well-being and I take that responsibility seriously.”

“Pet owners can feel a moral obligation to provide the best for their pets,” says Raquelle Murphy, a therapist at Dazed Therapy, “and spending money on the best product or care can give a person a sense of power and control in an unpredictable world.”

My friend Monica is a successful corporate lawyer, so no matter how much she spends on her cats, she’s never forced to go without for herself, but lots of people are more than willing to spend money on their dogs and cats at the expense of themselves. In fact, in a 2022 survey of 2,000 pet parents, 71 percent reported putting their pet’s needs above their own. According to research obtained internally by Kinship from Mars Petcare, in 2020, pet parents spent $552 per pet each month.

“If it comes down to something for me or for my dog, 1,000 percent the dog gets what she wants/needs first,” wrote one Reddit user. “Our dogs are spoiled, too,” wrote another. “They get homemade food and treats. Their meat alone usually costs more than all our human groceries.”

​​”I'm currently standing in line to sell plasma for my Pittie’s food,” wrote another commenter. 

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Is it possible to be too devoted?

“I haven’t had a doctor since I was a teenager and I have several untreated injuries atm,” another Redditor said, “but I took money out of my 401(k) to make sure my ferrets get the best medical treatment (surgeries, vaccines, checkups, flea tick and heartworm prevention, and lots of post-surgery and recovery medicines and accessible bedding and toys etc.).”

“Indulging pets more than oneself is not inherently unhealthy,” says Dr. Max Doshay,  a clinical psychologist at Monima Wellness. “As long as it doesn’t lead to neglecting one’s own basic needs or financial stability. It only becomes pathological when the behavior leads to significant personal distress, financial instability, or relationship strain. If individuals compromise their health, social obligations, or financial responsibilities to cater excessively to their pets, it may indicate an underlying issue that requires attention and possibly intervention.”

If you find you are regularly overextending yourself on behalf of your pet, therapist and licensed clinical social worker Megan McConnell of Inner Abundance Counseling suggests you pause and ask yourself the following questions:

1. “What am I telling myself it means about me as a pet parent to buy/do this thing for my pet? What do I fear it means about me if I don’t? Is that fair to myself?”

2. “Do I actually have the ability to comfortably afford this? What will I have to sacrifice if I invest in my pet in this way?”

3. “Do I invest a comparable amount of love, effort, and money in myself as I do in my pet? If not, why not? What could it look like to even the scales?”

Of course, pets bring so much love and joy into our lives, and taking care of them is often mutually beneficial. “I literally got my dog because I knew that it would give me a sense of purpose and I would do the things for him that I would never do for myself,” wrote a Redditor. “I may not be able to get out of bed every morning on my own, but I would never let him need to go to the bathroom and not go outside. I may want to be a lazy blob on my couch, but my dog needs his exercise, and that's more important.”

“I was never willing to touch kale or any green that wasn’t iceberg lettuce, until I had [pet] rats,” wrote another Reddit user. “Once I got them, my fridge was stocked with plant matter I'd never considered to be edible before.”

If you want to go big for your pet, go big, but don’t feel bad if you can’t afford to go as big as other people or as big as you think your pet deserves. At the end of the day, the thing your pet wants most — more than trips to the dog spa or fancy toys or songs composed in their honor (I still can’t believe my friend did that) — is to spend quality time with you. Prioritize that, and you’ll be giving them a great life.