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Great men, of course, have always exalted animals. One pharaoh maintained a staff of 12,000 to attend to his sacred cats and dogs. Ovid wrote poems to his dog, T.S. Eliot to his cats. Caligula crowned his horse, and Winston Churchill confided to a favorite poodle secrets "I'd tell no man." President Kennedy used to swim in the nude with his Welsh spaniel. Another spaniel named Checkers helped prolong the political career of Richard Nixon. When Lyndon Johnson pulled up one of his beagles by the ears one day, he received more protest mail that month from outraged pet lovers than he got from parents of men who were dying in Viet Nam.
Lovable Smell. Today pet ownership has become almost as sacred a democratic right as if it had been written into the Constitution. Indeed, a California lawyer sued the city of Berkeley for impounding a dog without due process. "Pity the poor animals," wrote George Bernard Shaw. "They bear more than their natural burden of human love." The burden is not too onerous.
Pet-food manufacturers, who spend some $165 million a year to advertise their wares, scramble to produce ever more salivating goodies, aimed, of course, not at the consumer but its owner, as evidenced by such slogans as "Lets you feed your dog like a member of the family," and "He'll love the taste; you'll love the smell; you'll both love it." (The advertising is indeed effective; a considerable amount of dog food in the U.S. is consumed by impecunious humans attracted by the relatively low price.) For misanthropic mutts, one maker has brought out People Crackers, which are shaped like mailmen and cops, with the slogan: "Give your dog a little somebody between meals." Butchers dealing only in choice cuts for pets reported no decrease in sales during the 1973 meat boycott; many furnish gourmet meals for their customers—some of whom allow their pet to take a place at the dinner table.
For home chefs, Ellen Graham's The Growling Gourmet (Simon & Schuster) gives recipes for such specialties as Model Marisa Berenson's Shih Tzu Stew (a Shih Tzu is a small Asian canine), Actress Joey Heatherton's Finian Bake (a Gaelic pudding for Yorkshires) and Artist Andy Warhol's menu of quarter-pounders for his dachshund. Preparing these dishes probably benefits the chef more than the pet; veterinarians agree that dry, kibbled food meets all the nutritional requirements of dogs and cats (though boa constrictors and cheetahs may require meatier sustenance).