Rhode Island Supreme Court: 'We live in a society where many owners tend to anthropomorphize their pets and treat them as cherished members of their family.'

01:51 AM EDT on Sunday, June 20, 2004

BY TRACY BRETON
Journal Staff Writer

Journal photo / Gretchen Ertl Robert Parrillo, a Providence lawyer, takes his dog Jack to work with him.

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Is a pet a piece of property or a member of the family?

Courts in different states have given conflicting answers.

In 1995, the Rhode Island Supreme Court rebuffed a dog owner's attempt to collect damages for emotional trauma after her pet was killed by two dogs. It said such damages could be awarded only if "the party is a close relative of the victim."

"Clearly," the court said, "the victim in this case was not a relative of the plaintiff."

But a few months ago, the Rhode Island Supreme Court indicated it might allow such lawsuits. In a case that eventually settled out-of-court, the insurance company for Brooks Pharmacy paid a dog owner for psychic damages after a pharmacist dispensed the wrong medicine for her pet's heart condition.

The dog, Fever, had to be put to sleep as a result of the mix-up in medication, according to court records. Fever's owner, Holly L. Hey, is still grief-stricken. Four years later, she still hasn't buried her wirehaired daschund's ashes.

In reviewing Hey's case late last year, the state Supreme Court said: "Labeling a dog 'property' fails to describe the value human beings place upon the companionship that they enjoy with a dog. A companion dog is not a living room sofa or dining room furniture ... We live in a society where many owners tend to anthropomorphize their pets and treat them as cherished members of their family."

NO KIDDING.

Elaine Weisman, who lives on the East Side of Providence, calls her 8-year-old Westhighland terrier, Ozzie, her "child." A few weeks ago, she and her husband booked a $500-a-night suite at a bed-and-breakfast in East Hampton, N.Y., so they could bring Ozzie on a three-day vacation. If they'd left their dog at home, they could have had a room for $300 a night. But that was unthinkable.

"The last time we left Ozzie with a stranger," says Weisman, "we came home and he was in the hospital, deathly ill, on intravenous. The woman we'd left him with was an experienced dogsitter, a lovely woman. But Ozzie had separation anxiety."

The veterinarian told Weisman she should take her dog to a puppy psychiatrist but her husband came up with a better solution. "Now I just don't leave him with strangers."

So Ozzie went to the Hamptons.

But first, they went shopping.

Elaine and Ozzie stopped at Park Ave. Puppy's, a store on Federal Hill's Spruce Street, to buy Ozzie an outfit for the trip: a harness and leash made by Louis Vuitton, a harness charm and a Burberry raincoat. The tab came to $264.29.

Ozzie has six other leashes and harnesses at home, says Weisman, but the Louis Vuitton one "is the prettiest one and nothing is too good for Ozzie."

PROVIDENCE trial lawyer Robert D. Parrillo doesn't take his three dogs on vacation. But he brings one of them, a golden retriever named Jack, to work every day.

Parrillo's Dorrance Street office is appointed with hand-painted murals, 18th-century oil paintings, oriental rugs, leather chairs and antique tables.

A stereo system pipes arias and jazz into the waiting area. Clients are offered San Pellegrino and biscotti, and coffee or tea. The kitchen is stocked with Poland Spring water, liver bits and a couple of tennis balls.

Jack has a doggy chair in the conference room. But he seems to prefer to sit on the leather chairs, where he can see both his master, and Lorraine, the office manager.

Parrillo, who is a member of the board of directors of the prestigious International Academy of Trial Lawyers, brings Jack to meetings at other lawyers' offices. Unless a client has an aversion to dogs, Jack is present for all conferences.

"Coming to a law firm is a tension-filled experience," says Parrillo, "and I think having a dog here makes the clients feel sort of at home and relaxed."

Parrillo and his wife, Superior Court Judge Alice B. Gibney, have two other dogs at home -- Stella, a bassett hound, and Grommet, another golden retriever. The couple and their son, Nick, consider all the animals "family members." At 2 o'clock each morning, 7-year-old Stella wakes Parrillo up "so I can feed her carrots and take her outside."

ACCORDING TO a recent report issued by the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, in 10 years, consumer spending on pets has doubled, from $17 billion in 1994 to a projected $34.3 billion for 2004. The association says people spend 60 percent more on pet products than they do on toys for their children and 33 percent more than on candy.

"It all reflects a change in the consumer psychology," says Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing, in Stevens, Pa. In the 1950s, Danziger says, "pets were still animals. But today people who are pet enthusiasts very much look upon them as members of their family, and that carries a lot of emotional connection that wasn't there before."

Bonnie Beaver, an animal behaviorist who teaches at Texas A & M University, says that pets and their owners have grown closer because "society is changing. It's become more urban, less rural and it's also become more mobile." With divorce rates soaring, "it's the animal that moves with us, not the spouse, and it's the animal that becomes the constant in the house."

Adds Danziger: "More people are waiting until they are older to get married, if they get married at all, and look upon their pets as "surrogate children." And the baby-boomers who are becoming "empty-nesters are filling the emotional void" with pets.

JANE LUBIN refers to herself as "Abby Rose's mother."

Abby Rose is an 8-lb. Pekingese-Chihuahua mix that Lubin describes as a Pekahuahua.

"She really looks like a monkey" but "she's my first little girl. I really need a little girl to ruin from birth," says Lubin.

Lubin has just ordered an armoire to house Abby Rose's wardrobe -- which includes a $100 bunny coat, a pink muscle shirt that says Bitch on it, a fur coat, leather jackets, a pink Swarovski jeweled collar, a Louis Vuitton collar and a Diva charm.

Lubin has also commissioned an artist to paint an oil portrait of Abby Rose -- outstretched on a divan wearing pearls and a boa -- for the living room wall of her condominium. Abby Rose's predecessors, a Sheltie named Boots and a Pekingese-poodle mix named BJ -- have already been memorialized. Their portraits, modeled after Thomas Gainsborough's Blue Boy and Frans Hals' The Laughing Cavalier, are much larger than the wedding portraits of the Lubins' children, which hang on an adjacent wall.

EVERYONE, it seems, is cashing in.

Danziger's study shows that 55 percent of American households have one or more pets, and that last year, 80 percent of pet owners bought "extras" for their dogs, ranging from plastic balls to $150 cashmere sweaters.

OPI, the California-based nail polish company, now makes six shades of polish for dogs called Pawlish. There's a company, Kosher Pets, that sells a canned chopped liver dinner for dogs.

In Rhode Island there are chiropractors, massage therapists and acupuncturists who work on animals -- at $45 to $60 per treatment. Sharon Doolittle, a Johnston veterinarian, says alternative therapy for dogs and horses has become her whole practice. Almost half of that money comes from chiropractic and acupuncture services, says Doolitle, who travels as far as Florida to work.

Celeste Ryfa, a sports massage therapist, estimates that half of her business is working on dogs and horses. A few days ago, a woman and her Doberman pinscher came to Ryfa's Richmond Square office in Providence so they could get massages together.

Cheryl Leavey, of East Bridgewater, Mass., drives two hours every other week so she and the Doberman, Dianna Vom Cedarhof, can be worked on by Ryfa. Leavey calls Dianna "my partner, my best friend. We do everything together. I have a husband," she says, "but he goes to the casino."

Rachel Dunoff, of Temecula, Calif., used to make wedding cakes for humans but now makes a living running the Bow Wow Bakery, a mail-order business that sells three-tiered wedding cakes for dogs, doggy birthday cakes and puppy shower cookies. There's a choice of flavors: carrot, peanut butter or chicken garlic "and we have customers all over the country, in Canada and Paris," says Dunoff. "We even sent an order to Nigeria."

Last year, Dunoff says, her business grew by 70 percent, thanks in large part to growing number of doggy birthday parties. "We also do one or two puppy showers a week. Last week, we did a doggy luau in Lexington, Kentucky," Dunoff said. There were bacon-flavored cookies shaped like roast pigs, pink cookies shaped like flamingos and green cookies shaped like palm trees. "The host supplied the leis."

Dunoff's three-tiered woof wedding cake, which costs $65, is made with whole wheat flour, carrots, vegetable oil, honey, molasses, fresh eggs, "no sugar or additives."

Heidi Grantier makes bridal wear for dogs in her mobile home in Atlanta. Her online business -- myfauxpaws.com -- sells tuxedos, bridesmaids' dresses, top hats and veils for canines. Last week, she was busy making a tuxedo for a Great Dane in Vancouver. "It's pretty sad," she said, "that this dog's chest is bigger than mine!"

Susanna Barrett, the owner of Park Ave Puppy's, on Federal Hill, sells $28 doggy bikinis, a Louis Vuitton collar and leash set for $499, and wetable T-shirts for dogs emblazoned with the New England Patriots and Boston Red Sox logos -- "the New York Yankees ones already sold out."

At her outdoor pet cafe, dog owners can sip their own frappuccino or sparkling water while their pooches dine on Bark-A-Chino ($7.50), carob biscotti and peanut butter bones ($10 each.)

BY 8 A.M., the parking lot at Eric Letendre's American Canine center in Westport, Mass., is full of SUVs. Labrador retrievers, rescue mutts, bassett hounds and German shepherds almost pull their masters off their feet as they lunge with excitement toward the pen where, for up to 10 hours, they will get to play with as many as 45 other dogs and "Uncle Tony" Cabral, the ringmaster in charge of the outdoor playpen.

Cabral knows all the dogs by name: Chloe, Decker, Jimmy, Moses, Panda, Lucas, Daisy, Monty, Ruffles, Zoe, Lou, Carmen, Max, Dudley, Tobey and Bentley. He knows who's got a crush on whom and when a dog needs a time-out for a nap indoors.

He accurately predicts which of his charges will be the first to jump into a large metal pool to fetch tennis balls and plastic rings -- the Labrador and golden retrievers, of course.

As Cabral shouts each dog's name and lovingly dishes out pats to their heads, exhorting them to "be a good boy, be a good girl," Letendre, who watches the mayhem being played out before him, explains why Rocky, a German shepherd, is crouching low with his tail between his legs. "We've had him since he was a pup," says Letendre, a dog trainer who himself owns five dogs, most of them acquired from rescue leagues. "He's very, very shy but he'll get over it in a little bit once everyone calms down."

He points to Hershal, a yellow Lab that has been playing in the water. The reason he's so fat, says Letendere, because "he has a thyroid problem. He takes medicine twice a day for it."

Letendre screens each dog that comes to him for day care, testing them with his own dogs first, to make sure they don't have "aggression problems." If they don't play nicely, "we don't mix them in with the general population. They'll get individual playtime," says Letendre, who charges $14 a day for his day care.

Once a month, Letendre has Yappy Hour. Pet owners enjoy wine and cheese while watching their dogs play together.

Cabral, who prefers his current job to his former work in a salvage yard, calls his charges at doggy day care "my nieces and nephews, the best friends I have."

Victoria Talbot, of Little Compton, has been bringing her dog, Moses, to Letendre since puppy kindergarten. Moses now comes to doggy day care twice a week "so he can have fun with his friends and exercise and get tired out. He loves it. I tell him, 'we're going to school' and he gets really psyched. He jumps to get into the car."

"When I first heard about doggy day care, I thought it was weird," says Billy DeSousa, the owner of a $975 German shorthaired pointer. But now, DeSousa, a 30-year-old bachelor, drops Lucas at the day care twice a week.

He refers to Lucas as "my first official responsibility." On the days when Lucas doesn't get to see his playmates, DeSousa comes home from work for a one-hour lunch so the dog doesn't get lonely.

BEAVER, the animal psychologist who is president-elect of the American Veterinary Medical Association, says that years ago, the dog was "the protector of the farm. Then it became the dog in the backyard; now it's the dog in the house. And as we are living closer to them, their relationships with us become much closer."

And as the culture has changed, legislatures and the courts are now starting to amend the way they look at companion animals. Historically, courts have allowed a pet owner who brings a lawsuit to recover only the "market-value" of the animal. But in 2000, Tennessee became the first state to pass a law giving a pet owner the right to collect damages for loss of companionship. Two years later, Illinois passed a similar law. A bill has been introduced in the Colorado legislature to allow people to seek damages of as much as $100,000 for loss of companionship of a pet.

For the second year in a row, bills in the Rhode Island House and Senate have been introduced that would allow pet owners to collect damages for loss of companionship and mental distress if an animal dies as a result of negligence or animal cruelty, but neither bill has received a hearing.

When a New York woman sued an animal hospital for emotional distress after opening her dog's casket at a funeral home and finding the body of a dead cat inside, a judge ruled that she was entitled to damages beyond the market value of her dog. The plaintiff, the judge noted, "had an elaborate funeral scheduled and planned to visit the grave in the years to come. She was deprived of this right."

An elderly Kentucky woman was awarded $126,000 in damages in 1998 in a lawsuit stemming from the loss of her two horses -- all but $1,000 of it for emotional distress and punitive damages. The woman, who had a form of muscular dystrophy, had owned the Appaloosas for decades but had become too frail to care for them, so she had given them to a horse farm to live out the rest of their days. Within days of taking possession of the horses, the farm sold them for horse meat. The woman never got to collect most of the damages she was awarded because the couple that owned the farm declared bankruptcy after the verdict.

In February, a California man who sued his dog's vet for malpractice convinced a jury to award him $9,000 for the veterinary bills and $30,000 for the dog's "unique" value to its owner. According to the Los Angeles Times, the dog owner spent five years and $375,000 in attorney's fees to go after the vet.

View more photos of people and their pets, upload your own pet photos, take a survey on how you view pets, find links to local shelters and more:

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