Americans consider pets family

NEW YORK — Susan Jacobs and her companion Kingston both 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 all 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.

He doesn't consider her a full member of the family, though. "She's part of the family but not a human part of the family," he said.

Singles were more likely to say a pet was a full member of the family than married people — 66 percent of single women versus 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.

Milkshake, who sleeps at the foot of her bed, sticks his cold nose on her eyelid and touches his paw to her face at 4:30 a.m. to wake her up and feed him. The other cat, Licorice, sleeps on the couch and has a habit of sitting on her newspaper when she is trying to read it.

"If you try to budge her, she will not move," said Jablonski, laughing. "You will have to practically pick her up and move her."