In America, tethering your dog when you shop is controversial. If you want to pop into a cafe to grab a coffee, keeping one eye on your dog, you’re good. But once you start losing yourself in the aisles, you start running a risk of your dog getting stolen, not to mention getting into all kinds of trouble if he starts acting out.
But in Germany? Holy moly:
That’s an Ikea.
Perhaps in Germany nobody steals dogs, and all dogs dutifully use the potty on command before being tethered to Ikea, but even so: Those dogs are tethered to Ikea. This is the place you go for a salad bowl or a cushion in the morning and emerge in the late afternoon, sweaty and disoriented and in a HUGE fight with whoever you came with. You get lost in Ikea. Time stops in Ikea. Japanese people take vacations in Ikea. I don’t even think its possible to even just walk through Ikea in less than 45 minutes because MY GOD KITCHENS BULLETIN BOARDS SECTIONALS CLOCKS GAVIK ORGEL VATE STRANNE FILLSTA GRONO JONSBO I WANT IT ALL I WANT EVERYTHING (collapse).
Can you imagine your poor dog sitting outside through all that?
It’s hard to get too mad at Ikea. This is the outfit that once let 100 cats loose in a store after hours to make an incredible video. The store means well. The Ikea near my house has a shopping daycare for kids near the entrance. What other store has a shopping daycare? Sometimes I drop my child off for a few hours and go lie down on a Fjellse. (I don’t really do this.) What probably happened in this case is that the store, so highly tuned to the shopping experience, built this contraption to please Ikea shoppers.
But shopping at Ikea can turn Olympic at the drop of a hat (or at the sight of a Oppdal). You literally have no awareness of time passing when you stand near, for example, Engan. What are you doing bringing your dog into this? Affixing your dog to one of these contraptions and spending two hours redecorating your house in your head instead of just buying the rug your came for is madness. Your dog can’t run, can’t poop or pee (though he probably will), and the risk of him being stolen are even more than outside a Walmart, because look how precious Ikea has made these dogs look.
It’s almost like Ikea is selling these dogs, presenting them in as fine a light as a Bekkestua or a Malm (those are headboards). Sure, they look sad, but they look great looking miserable, don’t they?
Granted this is Germany. Social mores are different in Europe. For instance, in France, more than 100,000 people abandon their dogs to the shelter when they go on vacation every summer.
So, are you for against tethering outside of Ikea? What about the corner store? You let us have it in the comments on our story Do You Tether Your Dog While You Shop? Hit us again.
