I saw this picture and laughed outloud. I am not a fan of dressing dogs up, but this struck me funny.

It was accompanied by this article on about how the Japanese are increasingly choosing pets over children and dogs outnumber children 10 and under in Japan.

The article says it best:

Let's be honest. A dog doesn't talk back. A cat never grows up to get hooked on heroin and resent you. A dog doesn't need college tuition or bat mitzvah money. I suspect that some people might see Toshiko Horikoshi pushing her puppies in a pram and snicker and think she's insane. Think she wishes she had babies. But she's a doctor who knows what she's doing. She doesn't want kids. She wants dogs. And that's okay. We're living in an overcrowded world where women are finally allowed to make choices. And if your choice is to baby a puppy or kitten instead of a human, who cares? There's a stigma of "crazy cat ladies" — maybe dating waaaay back to when women who were "too close" to animals were thought to be "communicating" with "familiars" in the animal world and therefore deemed witches?Unlike spoiling a child — where the rest of the world has to deal with the bratty maladjusted results, isn't lavishing attention, affection, and yeah, cash on a dog or cat a victimless crime? So why do people feel the need to make pet-crazy women feel guilty?

Now how to convince my parents of this...