No Way to Treat a Loyal Pet Owner

Domino is probably on the phone with his lawyer right now, complaining about that little operation I forced upon him a few years back or the lack of variety in his daily dinner fare.

Given his canine heritage, he must be sniffing changes in the wind that might signal a change in his lowly status in a house full of human beings.

If the Los Angeles Animal Services Commission has its way, my stint as dog owner may soon be over, and I’ll become, instead, the guardian of the “animal companion” I just whacked with a newspaper for going through the trash.

The guy leading the campaign to humanize pets sounds wacky enough to be in need of a little guardianship himself. Veterinarian Elliot M. Katz considers the term “pet” demeaning and would like us to stop “objectifying” our “animal companions” by considering them property.

Last month, that argument prevailed before the agency overseeing the city’s animal shelters--where more than 45,000 animals are put to death each year. And on July 22, the agency will decide whether to press the City Council to strike the term “pet owner” from its local codes.

Our attitude is a throwback to less enlightened times, he says, comparing the ownership of dogs and cats to the enslavement of blacks and exploitation of Native Americans during colonial times.

As a descendant of both slaves and natives, I resent being compared to my dogs, who drink from the toilet, lick their privates in public and will eat anything that’s not nailed down.

Don’t get me wrong; I love Domino and Puff. My pets sleep on the beds, eat gourmet dog food and have an entire shelf in the linen closet dedicated to their medicine, vitamins and grooming aids.

I once resorted to consulting a psychic--a pet communicator, she called herself--to try to fathom the wishes of my dying dog before I signed off on euthanasia.

And I’ve been known to reject potential suitors because the dogs didn’t warm to them or they weren’t appropriately deferential.

But still, a dog is a dog and not a person. That’s why Noel and Knoller went on trial in the San Francisco mauling death of Diane Whipple, rather than their killer dogs, Bane and Hera.

Pets can be taught to come, to fetch, to stay, to roll over, but they will never be able to exercise the judgment we expect from rational humans.

They are simple creatures, driven by instinct, loyalty, routine.

That is why we love them, why we feel so compelled to care for them. And that’s why we, not they, are in charge.

The idea of elevating their official status has been floating around for years, promoted by animal-rights groups, some of them radical enough to seek abolishing the raising of farm animals, the use of animals in medical research, as well as the zoos and aquariums that display them.

Already a handful of cities around the country have adopted the new lingo, decreeing that pet owners be called guardians instead.

They tout the term’s symbolic meaning, as a means of expressing respect for our furry friends.

But vets are wringing their hands over other prospects, fearful that challenges to animals’ medical care will fuel malpractice suits and result in skyrocketing liability costs that could push veterinary care out of reach of all but the most affluent pets and their check-writing guardians.

Even animal lovers like Bob Vella, host of the syndicated radio program “Pet Talk America” worries that “animals would, over time, be able to sue for such things as not wanting to be eaten, not wanting to be in zoos, or tested on, or being ‘enslaved’ as a Seeing Eye dog.”

In other words, animals’ rights would begin to trump humans’. But then, some say they already have.

I’m not worried that anarchy will result if we allow our pets the privilege of near-equal status. It’s not a scary proposal, just a silly one. And certainly an unnecessary one. We already treat our animals as well or better than we treat our human family and friends.

Almost half the families in America have a dog or cat, and three-quarters of them consider their pet “a member of the family” rather than a possession.

More than 90% have photos of their pets on display, 85% refer to themselves as “mom” or “dad” in pet-related conversations, and almost 75% of married pet owners say they greet their pets before their spouses when they arrive home from work each day.

One-third of pet owners admit to talking to their pets on the phone or leaving messages for them on the answering machine.

We consider the needs of our pets in family decisions on everything from when and where we go on vacation to what kind of vehicle we drive and where we live and which house we buy.

During my family’s house-hunting excursions, we ruled out homes near busy streets because if the dogs got out, they might get hit by a car.

A friend recently moved from a two-story to a one-story home, because her aging dog could no longer climb the stairs.

Yet Katz, a “dog guardian” who lives in Northern California, complains that we treat pet ownership too cavalierly.

He’s seen people abandon cats because they clawed the furniture or dogs because they piddled on the floor, he says.

Well, we’ve also seen children abandoned and mistreated for less than that--newborn babies thrown in dumpsters, handicapped teenagers locked in closets, toddlers beaten to death because they won’t stop crying or scalded in hot tubs because they wet their pants.

If something as simple as changing a name could guarantee humane behavior, none of us would object. Guardian, caregiver, animal pal--it’s not the name that keeps our pets safe.

The bigger challenge is convincing those who tend our children to treat those little ones with the same sort of love and affection that so many of us reserve for pets.

*

Sandy Banks’ column is published Sundays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is sandy.banks@latimes.com.