Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

Well, each year, as fireworks light up the sky on the 4th of July, social media also lights up,

with angry pet owners pleading against them. On July 5th, ABC 10 News in San Diego reported that

the local humane society had already picked up over 100 stray animals.

Most of them dogs frightened away from their homes by the loud explosions.

One employee told reporters she anticipated that number to quadruple in the coming days.

Now, the increased concern over how pyrotechnics affects pets is understandable,

but it's also partly due to Americans having way more pets than ever before. Since

2023, the number of dogs has increased by over 3 million, putting the nation's total of

domestic canines at over 68 million. At the same time, pet medication has become a lucrative medical

industry. The pet supply website, chewy.com, lists 10, most common medications for paranoid pups.

And according to a 2016 study, 83% of vets prescribed anxiety meds for dogs as a standard part of their practice.

And all that, of course, coincides with the explosion of mental health diagnoses and therapy

speak among humans, as described, for instance, in Abigail Schreier's book, Bad Therapy.

So it at least must be possible that some pet owners are projecting their own mental struggles

onto their pets. For instance, it's super interesting that liberal political beliefs have been

shown to strongly correlate with mental health diagnoses. Is it little surprise then, as noted

in the Atlantic, that vet behaviorists are now mostly clustered in liberal areas?

Many apparently assume that since their psychiatrist helps them cope with medication,

the same can be done for their dogs.

The press, of course, has pounced on this idea in a 2022 New York Times piece entitled

...