NEW YORK — Susan Jacobs and her companion Kingston like chicken and collards, chilling on the couch and riding in her convertible with the breeze tussling his curly black hair.
Kingston, it should be said, is a black poodle. But for Jacobs, 45, of Long Beach, Calif., he is like a child.
“The next time I travel, I’ll probably take him with me,” said Jacobs, a Mary Kay consultant and freelance writer. “I’m just used to him being around.”
An Associated Press-Petside.com poll released Tuesday found that half of American pet owners consider their pets as much a part of the family as any other person in the household; another 36 percent said their pet is part of the family but not a full member.
And that means pets often get the human touch: Most pet owners cop to feeding animals human food, nearly half give the animals human names, and nearly a third let them sleep in a human bed. While just 19 percent had bought an outfit for a pet, 43 percent felt their pet had its own “sense of style.”
Nathan Nommensen, 19, a college student who lives with his parents in Winthrop Harbor, Ill., said their golden retriever, Molly, sleeps in his parents’ room, goes with them on camping trips and appears in their annual family Christmas photo.
But he doesn’t consider her a full member of the family.
Singles were more likely to say a pet was a full member of the family than married people — 66 percent of single women compared with 46 percent of married women, for example. And men were less likely to call their pet a full member of the household.
For some single women, pets become surrogate children, said Kristen Nelson, a veterinarian in Scottsdale, Ariz. She said men are also attached to pets — but are less likely to admit it because it’s not seen as masculine.
Debbie Jablonski, 50, of Wilmington, N.C., talks about her cats like a mom talks about her children.
She celebrates the cats’ birthdays, includes photos of the cats in holiday cards and watches home movies of them playing.
Most pet owners don’t go that far, according to the survey. Only a little more than a quarter celebrate their pet’s birthday or the day it came to live with them, and just a third have included a pet’s photo or name in a holiday card.
Pet names being given the human touch
So much for Rover and Fido.
Almost half of American pet owners gave an animal a humanlike name, such as Jack or Sophie, according to an Associated Press- poll.
Some of the more unusual names: Hollywood and Chichi Mittens, both cats; Vegas, a Labrador retriever; Jibber Jack, a dog; a Beagle named Talulublue; and Louis XIV, a Yorkie.
In all, 49 percent of respondents, including 51 percent of dog owners and 50 percent of cat owners, had given at least one of their pets a humanlike name.
The most popular? Max got more mentions than other names in the poll — but not enough to give it any broad claim of popularity (less than 2 percent of all mentions).
One database of pet names, maintained by Veterinary Pet Insurance, also finds that Max pops up more frequently than any other name.
There has been a move away from classic dog names such as Spot and Lassie, according to VPI spokesman Curtis Steinhoff. There were 13 Fidos in VPI’s database in 2008, placing the name at No. 2,866.
Rover was No. 2,534, behind names such as Grendel, Ginger Snap and Munchie.
The Associated Press
