How to Make Your Pet Love You...More Than Everyone Else in the Family

We all know how nice it is when your pets conspicuously love you more than those boring and/or infuriating people you share your home with—especially after you've had a long, hard day at Curling practice, or just accidentally lit your own hair on fire. But how to make your pet adore you above all others? Since it’s not always possible for you to have some sort of magical confluence of human-pet-soul-love,  here are a few simple tips on how to make your pets love you more than anyone else in your family. Because really, that's what the holiday season is all about.

Give Your Pet a Spa Treatment. People might roll their eyes when they see Chi-Chi’s shiny fake nails, but is it up to them to judge? No. This is for the animals to decide—and 9 out of 13 dog, horse, and ferret whisperers declare that animals love the floral appliqués you paste on their paws/hooves/claws. And contrary to popular belief, Dennis Rodman, females, and emo kids are not the only creatures on this fair planet who enjoy having their hair dyed. So, you can either go the rainbow-snow-cone poodle direction, or take inspiration from these totally confusing pictures of Labradors dyed to look (kind of) like tigers. Your precious pooches will love getting all dolled up, and when the time comes for them to chose a cuddle partner on a lonely Tuesday night, you can bet your allowance they're going to pick YOU—just make sure their fur-paint is dry before they snuggle up on top of your brand new parachute pants.

Dress up as the other members of your family and disappoint your pets. One way to ensure that your pet likes you more than everyone else is to convince them that everyone else sucks. The simplest way to achieve this is to dress up like each member of your family, and then intentionally frustrate your animal companion. For example: put on your sister’s prom dress, pin that hair back, slap on some strawberry lip-gloss, and grab your black-market kangaroo’s leash. Then say, in an excited, high pitched voice, “Want to go for a walk, Black Market Kangaroo?” Next, sit down and watch TV. When Kangy gets impatient, stand up and say “Bad. Kangaroo. Bad bad kangaroo.”  Your pet will think your sister is a big-time bizznatch, and you'll come out on top yet again—until PETA finds out that you've got an unregistered black market kangaroo living in your home.

Dress up like them. The old saying “opposites attract” might be true for us homonids, but it couldn’t be more false when it comes to the animal kingdom. There are all sorts of stupid costumes for your pets, but people have it backwards: you have to buy a costume and dress up like THEM, not dress them up like YOU. Your pet will adore the company, and, subsequently, adore you.  Even though these people might look like they’re absolutely out of their gourds, they’re really geniuses. ‘Cause when their awful older brother eats the last of the chicken nuggets, those (illegally imported) pandas and turtles have their favorite family members’ backs.

Does you pet love you best, or are you forced to compete for his affection?

Related post: How To Understand Your Pets