Back to obedience school time.

Oh, come on, PetSmart.

First of all, it is July 15, and as you may know I am very much against premature back-to-schoolism. I understand that there are multiple issues at play here. In many places students have been running amok since May. But in New York the kids were slogging it out until two weeks ago. Do we really have to start rubbing it their faces now?

For national companies like PetSmart, Walmart, and even those that cover large regions like Shoprite, somewhere within their bailiwick students are going back in about a month, so let's get Mom and Dad thinking about the school supply specials. Which is still, to the child within me, mean. I don't care if you start school August 8; you should be allowed a carefree July. It will not happen again for most of us until we're too old to enjoy it anyway.

But as I say, in New York the kids just got out, and won't be going back for a month and a half. Is it too much to ask to wait two more weeks to roll out the back-to-school things?

And yet that too is only part of the issue here, because this is PetSmart. The things in the photo are dog toys. Are the dogs going back to school? I do not think so. Not unless obedience class happens to start soon, or the dog is an assistance dog accompanying a human student to school.

Dogs and cats don't know that it's (soon to be) back-to-school time. I know that they don't know that it's Christmas or Halloween or any of the other events for which companies supply seasonal toys for them either, but we get them these things as a way for them to have fun along with us at holidays. "Everybody gets a treat at Halloween, even Sophie McMophie!" Are we really so desperate to pretend to our kids that returning to education is fun that we have to make the pets into unindicted co-conspirators? Are we so bored that we have to turn the buying of crayons and notebooks into a national holiday, a holiday whose date we can't even agree to?

It's all pretty stupid, and I will not be part of it. Although when a bunch of these toys turn up in the discount bin when the Halloween stuff arrives I will be willing to buy them cheap for Destructo Pup, who still treats his toys cavalierly to say the least. He doesn't care if they're out of season, even though they won't be, because PetSmart celebrates Halloween in July. Seriously, it's the only store I know that has seasonal clearances before the actual holiday occurs.