Holding out for a hero

‘Bella, get your tail out of the camera. Shhh stop meowing I’m trying to present. Yes, we’ll watch Love Is Blind later.’ Boop! Signal lost. You’ve left the meeting. Frantically you try to dial in again only to turn around and see Bella licking her chops - on the floor is the other half of your wifi cable. Evil? Pure genius? Some may say heroic?

Superheroes can take many shapes and forms. Yes they can be Spiderman or Batman, or even big and brooding like The Hulk, but when it comes down to it what do we really want from a superhero? We want to be heard, to be understood, to be loved unconditionally and to be removed from situations we didn’t really want to be in in the first place. It’s our pets in a nutshell. Superhero Day takes place annually on the 28th of April and celebrates all the superheroes in our lives, be they human or pet.

“Many pet parents see their pets as superheroes because they provide unconditional love, loyalty, and companionship. Pets can also possess incredible abilities, like detecting danger, providing emotional support, or performing tasks such as guiding the blind or detecting medical issues,” explains pet behaviour expert, Marycke Ackhurst from Hill’s Pet Nutrition.

Hill’s knows that all pets are superheroes in their own way, with two recent initiatives shining the light on this:

• The 2022 launch of Making CONTACT is a five-part mini series that highlights the amazing role dogs play in the fight against poaching.
• The more recent launch of the IOS and Play Store Pet Matchmaker app that allows you to match your personal preferences around looks, activity level and personality traits; in the hopes that more heroes get homes.

Superhero Day is here to remind us that superheroes can come in any shape, size, or colour, and being one is more about having a big heart than having actual superpowers. Although, catching a ball mid-air or unrolling the entire roll of loo paper in one paw movement are superpowers, right?

In fact, it was while helping his wife volunteer at a pet shelter, where the idea for the movie DC League of Super-Pets came to filmmaker Jared Stern, when he thought to himself as he looked at the hundreds of puppies and kittens, and older pets too, ‘what if they’ve got superpowers?’ He added that, “Our pets, in some ways, are our real-life superheroes.”

Ackhurst concurs. “Through our Give a Hero a Home campaign, we’re encouraging Pet Matchmaker app downloads and registrations. There’s a Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, or Captain Marvel out there for everyone, and with the app’s extensive and fun filters you’re sure to find your very own superhero to suit your lifestyle.”

The Pet Matchmaker App is free to download on IOS and Android