Adopting a dog is a selfish thing in these ads

I read many enthusiastic comments about this campaign today. And I admit that the artwork is gorgeous. Without the copy would be the perfect illustrations for a book. Or an animation on Vimeo. But the copy for an animal care organisation ruin it all.

Advertising can be brought in a form of exaggeration. That is what the creatives from Ogilvy & Mather in India tried here. They failed.
Swap the dog for a child. Would you get rid of depression? And can you give a child a happy life if you suffer from depression?

Back to the ad from the World For All Animal Care and Adoptions. Strange starting point for an animal shelter. They would have to make a fuss about the dog. Not the human. A pet can bring you a lot of happiness. But it isn’t one-way traffic.

Comments

Hm. I agree that people should consider whether they can take good care of their pets, and that it’s problematic when people see a relationship with a pet or kid as unidirectional.

But I respectfully disagree that you can’t give a kid (or pet) a happy life if you struggle with depression. One in eight or more adults will experience major depression at some point in their lives. This doesn’t mean they can’t or shouldn’t parent. It does mean that we as a society need to do better to support people with disabilities of all kinds so they don’t have to choose between being sadly childless or having unhappy kids.

Plus, many cases of parental depression are unpredictable in the sense that they happen after the child is born, not before - like post-partum depression, or depression due to the increased stress of child-raising…

I say this because I have a loved one with clinical depression, who takes exemplary care of her cat, and whose cat adds a measure of routine and interaction to her life that mitigates the debilitating effects of depression. I would never dare presume that she couldn’t care for a cat because of her depression.