Activist Wants to Put a Muzzle on Those Who Say ‘Pet Owner’

In a city where the homeless shelter for animals is far more plush than its counterparts for humans, officials are considering a change in local ordinances to ban the use of the term “pet owner.”

To Elliot Katz, the veterinarian who brought the issue before the Commission of Animal Control and Welfare last week, it’s a matter of basic civil rights, up there with the abolition of slavery and giving women the vote.

Calling a person a “pet owner” unfairly “objectifies” animals, he insists. It “disrespects” them. Why, it means “we’re not treating them as equals.”

Far better, Katz insists, is the term “pet guardian,” and he wants the city to adopt this kinder, gentler appellation. In his heart of hearts, he would prefer a ban on the word “pet.” Demeaning, he sniffs. What’s wrong with “animal companion?”

“We have to turn the tide and see other species as warranting respect and looking at their needs as individuals,” says Katz, who is president of In Defense of Animals.

“It’s similar to how there was colonization or how the Native Americans were thought of as savages,” he says. “It’s objectifying either another race or minority or religion or another species as something less than oneself and not worthy of respect.”

No Northern Californian in his or her right mind would ever dare disrespect anyone or any being here in the capital of inclusion. After all, it’s not called the San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Parade Celebration for nothing.

And right across the bay in empathetic Berkeley, manholes are officially referred to as “sewer openings” to avoid any appearance of sexism.

Now the city attorney’s office in San Francisco is researching the ramifications of changing city ordinances to reflect the personhood of our furry friends.

Deputy City Atty. John I. Kennedy figures the easiest way to enact such a change would be by massaging the city and county’s health code, adding the word “guardian” somewhere in the county’s legal definition of pet “owner.”

San Francisco’s current definition for owner is: “any person who possesses, has title to or an interest in, harbors or has control, custody or possession of an animal, and the verb forms of ‘to own’ shall include all those shades of meaning.”

The issue will come up again at the animal welfare commission’s September meeting. The group could call on the Board of Supervisors to adopt a resolution or ordinance in favor of pet guardianship.

Still, Kennedy says, “the rights and responsibilities of an owner would be the same as a guardian: a right to claim your animal if it’s off your property; a responsibility not to be involved in any animal cruelty and abuse.”

Carl Friedman, San Francisco’s director of animal care and control, likes the basic concept because ownership implies “that you can do anything you want with your property.” But overall, he says, the effort is “a waste of time and energy.”

“The information we got [at the commission meeting] which I disagree with is that people will stop abusing animals if they’re looked at as not owned,” said Friedman, who is a member of the commission. “I challenge that. People abuse animals not because they’re the owners but because they’re bad people.”

Katz is undaunted by negative reaction to these early days of his national campaign, an effort his organization’s Web site refers to as “They Are Not Our Property.” Just look at the initial efforts to get women the vote, he says. “When the concept was first raised by the suffrage movement, they were a laughingstock.”

Next on Katz’s agenda? The Mill Valley vet--who declines to state the breeds of his adopted dogs because he says it feeds into the concept of animals as property--is writing an opinion piece to send to the nation’s newspapers to get them to change their ways.

“When a woman is raped or somebody is a serial killer, or someone does a really abusive act, the first thing the media and the victim scream is, ‘He’s an animal,’ ” says an outraged Katz.

And that, he insists, has to stop.