More than pets

Two poodles—one brown and another dark gray—stood out from the other dogs at Hong Kong’s Quarry Bay pet garden. Their fluffy curls made them look like mini Michelin Men. They also wore personalized bibs. The 3-year-old brown pooch’s read “Hargow,” a transliteration for shrimp dumpling, while the 5-year-old gray dog’s read “Siumai” for pork dumpling.

“I treat them like babies, like my own kids,” said Pinky, who owns the two female dogs named after Cantonese dim sum dishes. She said she cuddles and kisses them and they all sleep together in the same bed.

As we talked on the promenade, one of the poodles began barking aggressively at a passing dog. “No, no,” Pinky said. She clapped to try to break up the commotion, then issued a stern warning: “Mommy’s leaving.”

Pinky and five other dog owners I talked to that Sunday afternoon in late August said it’s normal for pet owners to treat their animals as kids. And that sentiment isn’t limited to Hong Kong. U.S. pet owners referring to themselves as dog (or cat) moms and dads also dote on their “furbabies.” The trend has become so pervasive it’s raising concerns about whether four-legged ­“children” are replacing their human counterparts.

Pet ownership is on the rise, and the pandemic gave it an especially big boost. About 23 million households in the United States—1 in 5—acquired a cat or dog between March 2020 and May 2021, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Seventy percent of U.S. households own pets, compared to 56 percent in 1988, according to the American Pet Products Association (APPA). Millennials make up the highest percentage of pet owners at 32 percent, while baby boomers trail at 27 percent.

At the same time, families are ­having fewer babies. In 2020, the U.S. recorded its lowest total fertility rate—the average number of children a woman would have within her childbearing years—at 1.64. A population needs a rate of 2.1 to replace itself. While the U.S. rate rose slightly to 1.66 in 2021, experts aren’t convinced that indicates a reversal to the overall downward trend.

In January, Pope Francis said the undue adulation of pets is partly to blame for a similar global trend. “Many couples do not have children because they do not want to, or they have just one because they do not want any more, but they have two dogs, two cats. Yes, dogs and cats take the place of children.”

Worldwide, fertility rates have decreased for the past 70 years with a 50 percent decline overall, according to the World Economic Forum. The forum attributes the drop to three main reasons: women attaining higher education and increasingly participating in the workforce; lower child mortality; and the rising cost of raising children.

Pope Francis described a “demographic winter” that shows a “certain selfishness” as many orphans await a loving home. “Fatherhood and motherhood are the fullness of the life of a person,” and rejecting those roles “takes away our humanity,” he said.

In Rochester, N.Y., Kirstin Rose-Bean and her husband take a very ­different approach to their one cat and two lab mixes.

“They are my fuzzy friends, and I love them dearly,” said Rose-Bean, who’s also a mother. But she finds it “very weird to think of pets as family or like people.” Yet many people do, and Rose-Bean has noticed that as society elevates pets to human status, expectations for a “good” pet owner have also changed.

One time, a pet store salesman tried to guilt her into buying “super expensive organic dog food.” He listed “all sorts of alleged health problems I would be inflicting on my dog by buying the cheap stuff,” she said. But since she doesn’t even eat all-organic herself, Rose-Bean insisted her dog could get by on the more affordable option.

The emphasis on giving pets the best has also filtered into medical care. While a dog or cat with cancer would’ve been euthanized “without a second thought in my childhood,” Rose-Bean observed, her social media feed is now “inundated” with crowdfunding campaigns to help pay for expensive treatments for sick animals.

“When a $5,000 GoFundMe for a stray dog at a shelter can get fully funded in about five minutes, but a $1,500 GoFundMe for a car for a single teen mom about to age out of foster care can’t get funded in several weeks, our society has a serious problem,” she said.

WHILE SOME MARRIED COUPLES do opt for pets instead of kids, Lyman Stone, a research fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, says that on the whole, animals are not replacing children. That’s because pet owners tend to be parents who already have kids, he told National Catholic Register. But pet ownership has surged among single women, Stone notes, a trend he attrib­utes to young people postponing marriage.

Stone thinks pets are standing in more as a spouse than a child. “Pet ­parents” often say their animals provide companionship, emotional support, security, or a sense of “home,” but these traits describe a spouse rather than a child, he wrote.

While that might be bad for fertility rates, it’s big business for the petcare industry. In 2021, the industry raked in $123.6 billion, up from 2020’s $103.6 billion, according to the APPA. Pinky told me she spends about $120 every two months on grooming and spa treatments to make Hargow and Siumai pretty. And Pinky, who gives her dogs only “the best things,” doesn’t let just anybody groom them. “It’s more expensive than for humans,” she said.

Which might be true for Yvette and Yvonne, a pair of Shih Tzus at the park who feast on a vet-recommended diet of broccoli, pork, salmon, and supplements. Their owner, Queenie, has taken dog massage classes to help improve their blood circulation. She showed me what she’d learned, reaching into a pet stroller to massage one dog’s leg. Queenie’s also taken them to acupuncture treatment and is now looking into aromatherapy to help them relax and sleep better. “I really treat them as my daughters,” she said.

The American Veterinary Medical Association found that households spent an average of $354 on veterinary care in 2020, including services and medications. But expenses for a pet with a serious illness can skyrocket. One dose of chemotherapy costs between $150 and $600, and radiation can cost up to $6,000, according to the Veterinary Cancer Society.

Scripture commends those who care for the needs of their animals (Proverbs 12:10). And Rose-Bean notes that God calls us to be stewards of all the earth. “But humans are made in the image of God in a way that animals are not,” she said. Faced with the choice to spend $5,000 on surgery to keep her dog alive or donate the same amount to her local homeless shelter, “the homeless shelter needs to win—every time,” she said.

And yet God has given a “wonderful bond” between mankind and animals, said Tom Buck, pastor of First Baptist Church of Lindale, Texas. In 2016, Buck preached a memorial service for a K-9 officer shot and killed by a criminal. Careful to avoid suggesting dogs go to heaven, Buck honored the animal’s service. “More than just a dog,” Ogar was a faithful partner to his handler, a central part of that deputy constable’s family, and a protector of his community, Buck said in his sermon.

Referring to Genesis, Buck said Adam’s God-given task of naming the animals, as opposed to other things in creation, forged a unique connection: “Maybe that’s where we get our love for God’s creatures.”

Back at the pet garden, several owners I met prepared to take their four-legged companions home, but not on leashes. These furbabies rode home in strollers. Queenie told me she pushes Yvette and Yvonne to keep them clean on Hong Kong’s dusty, “germy,” car-congested streets. Anthea told me her 9-year-old poodle, Checkers, has leg muscle problems that make it hard for him to walk.

Such cushy rides home also make it hard not to think pets like Yvette, Yvonne, and Checkers may have strolled a little too far into their owners’ hearts.