LOS ANGELES — The next time someone reaches for photos and offers: “Let me show you some pictures of my little darlings,” you might be surprised who’s mugging for the camera.
According to a recent poll, nearly half (45 percent) of all pet owners say they carry photos of their pets — in wallets, purses, cellphones, laptops, iPods, iPads and other mobile devices.
Dog owners (48 percent) are a bit more likely than cat owners (37 percent) to carry pet pictures with them, and women (52 percent) are more likely than men (36 percent).
More than half of those under age 50 say they carry pet pictures, but the number diminishes with age. Just under a quarter of those age 65 and up still carry such photos.
Tigger, a 6-year-old Persian cat, is such a fashion plate and so agreeable that Larry Beal of Newburyport, Mass., can’t help but take photos.
“He will do anything you ask him to,” Beal says. My wife dresses him in all kinds of doll clothing and stuff. He wears costumes for Easter and Thanksgiving and Halloween and Christmas and all sorts of things,” Beal said.
Refrigerator magnets and framed photos of the cat are all around his house.
But Tigger and his four-legged friends are still on the outside looking in, according to the poll conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media.
Almost all women — 90 percent — say they carry pictures of their children, as do 80 percent of men, including David Jeter, 51, of Los Angeles.
Jeter is married with two sons, ages 9 and 13, and a 6-year-old yellow Lab named Lucky. He has uploaded lots of photos from his digital camera to his global Blackberry, but Lucky didn’t make the cut.
Because he travels all over the world and sometimes doesn’t see family or friends for long periods, he carries the boys’ pictures so he can update the photos when he sees them again.
There are family photos on Jeter’s refrigerator, on his computer screensaver and in frames around the house. His favorite is one of everyone (except Lucky) on vacation in Bhutan in the Himalayas.
Jamie Veitch, 42, of Oklahoma City carries a few photos of her dogs, Sister, 16, and Pappy, 9, in her cellphone. She keeps lots more in her laptop.
“It’s important because I don’t have children and they are my babies,” she said. Her favorite photo was taken about three years ago when she had five small dogs (three have since died) and she took them to a pet store for a photo with Santa Claus. That picture still holds a special place on her refrigerator.
About a year ago, she had a double organ transplant (kidney and pancreas) and was hospitalized out of state for six weeks. She didn’t look at pictures.
“I had my phone but I was mostly on drugs,” Veitch said.
Thinking about her pets help more than pictures, and talking to the people who were taking care of them helped even more, she said.
“They didn’t like it when Mama was gone.” Marie Camenzind, 45, of San Carlos, Calif., carries iPhone photos of her daughters, 8 and 10, Blackjack Meow, the family’s 16-year-old cat, the kids’ guinea pigs and lots of fish.
“We’re a picture family. That’s how we are. My husband more than me, he’s always pulling out the camera. We like to share them.
When the kids are young, you want to capture everything,” Camenzind said.
She said her daughters are always grabbing her phone to shoot pictures of the pets, so the animals are well represented, but she worries about losing her phone and all the photos in it.
Camenzind said she uses her photos for screensavers and, “I’ve always been a big refrigerator person.” But her wallet doesn’t have a plastic photo holder, so she doesn’t have a collection of paper photos.
She’s right about the plastic sleeves being so yesterday.
“With the digital age upon us, many of our customers do carry photos and pics of their kids or loved ones on their phones, BlackBerries, iPhones, etc., so the demand for specific ‘picture holders’ has dropped significantly over the past few years,” said Francine Della Badia, a North America senior vice president for Coach. On the other hand, a picture frame key fob sold so well for Mother’s Day that Coach had to take it off its website after inventories got too low.
