By Debbie Gardner
debbieg@thereminder.com
When it comes to the relationship between pets and people, Dave Ratner, owner of the local pet store chain Dave’s Soda and Pet City, truly gets it. Over the past 38 years he’s made a successful career of understanding what dogs, cats, birds, gerbils, fish and reptiles – and their “parents” – want and need for a happy, healthy life.
Though he may have gotten into the pet food business by chance – information on the Dave’s website said the budding soda merchant noticed supermarkets had more pet food than soda back in 1975 and thought, “that’s a great idea for a store” – Ratner’s connection with our furry, finned and feathered companions goes far beyond good business. He’s a longtime pet “parent,” too, currently sharing his life with not only his wife, but also with two German shepherds.
“We haven’t been on a vacation in 20 years [because] we don’t want some else to stay with the dogs,” Ratner admitted. “And, we don’t want to put them in a kennel. Our whole lives revolve around the dogs, isn’t that funny? And we aren’t alone.”
Pets are his life – and his business
It was late January and Ratner was in his modest office, located behind the scenes at his sprawling Agawam store, talking with PRIME about animals and people and his own scary experiences as a pet “parent.”
“Last year, right around this time, one of my shepherds, the stomach flipped,” Ratner said, explaining that the hernia-like condition can happen to large-breed, deep chested dogs. “Thank God we were home, because if you don’t catch it within 45 minutes, the dog dies.”
His concern for his family’s beloved pets – something Ratner says he sees echoed in many of the customers who come in looking for dietary advice to help alleviate a pet’s ills – are just one example of how attitudes toward the animals who share our lives have evolved.
“When I started out in business 38 years ago selling dog food, people would come in – the farmers from Southwick and such – and the dogs were outside,” Ratner said, adding that back then canned pet foods like Ken-L-Ration and Purina were then the standard – not the high priced specialty foods of today. “I don’t know what happened, but just, over time, things changed” and pets began to take a more important role in the family.
He correlates this change, in part, to the “Whole Foods” mentality of modern consumption, and how it made pet owners begin to think about what they were feeding their animals. As people began to try and take better care of themselves, they extended that concern to their pets.
Today, Ratner noted, “The dogs and the cats are absolutely part of the family. Almost everyone who has a dog, its ‘daddy’ and ‘mommy,’ it’s just hysterical.”
As is the amount of money – as much as $90 for a bag of specialty dog food – that pet owners now routinely spend for food for these family “members,” he added.
“People love their pets, and they just want the best [for them],” he said. “If you ask where does the dog sleep? He sleeps in the bed. Dogs and cats rule.”
And it’s no different in his own family, Ratner admits.
“In my own life, we got our first dog when we got married, they’ve always been German shepherds and they’ve always been a central part of our lives,” he said. “They’ve slept on the bed with us from the beginning.”
Statistics don’t lie
A May 2015 online Harris Poll® of 2,205 U.S adults confirmed what Ratner sees on his selling floor every day. Our pets are more than just animals we take care of. They are a huge part of our lives, accounting for nearly $1,200 in per-pet spending on food, care and more each year. The poll showed that 62 percent of the individuals surveyed had at least one pet at home, and of those pet owners, 95 percent considered their cat-or dog-or other furred or scaled or feathered companion – a member of the family.
When it comes to owner behavior towards their pets, 71 percent admitted to letting the dog or cat sleep on the bed, 64 percent had bought their pet a holiday present (45 percent also bought their pet a birthday present) and 31 percent had cooked food specifically for their pet.
Moreover the breakdown of pet ownership and behaviors towards them was fairly consistent across genders, age groups and areas of the country where respondents lived. (http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/Pets-are-Members-of-the-Family.html).
“It’s across the board,” Ratner himself had observed. “It doesn’t matter what economic class you are in, it doesn’t matter what ethnic group you are in, people love their pets.”
Our pets are our “family”
“If someone had ever told me 38 years ago that pets would be as important as they are in the family, and the amount of money people would spend on them, I would have thought they were crazy,” Ratner said.
His second observation is that pets have gained the status they now have in our households because families and society have changed.
“Part of what fueled this is kids are getting married later, and they have their pets,” Ratner said. “I’m not going to say they are replacing children but well, with older people [pets] certainly add a lot to senior’s lives.
“Especially today, when kids move away, [parents] have a companion,” he continued. “They absolutely fill a void, especially as people live longer.”
In today’s fast-paced world, pets are also a source of stability and comfort, Ratner observed.
“The worst things get in the world, the more comfort your pet has to you,” he said, adding that the recent recession proved pet ownership is a constant, even during tough times. “You lose your job, you can’t go on vacation and you stay home, but you’ve got to have your dog, you’ve got to have your cat, to comfort you.”
And it doesn’t have to be a cat or a dog to offer that companionship and comfort Ratner said, noting that apartments and other types of housing complexes often have rules against larger pets. Birds, fish, and other small furry mammals can also fill the bill.
“If you can’t have a dog or cat, Guinea pigs are the best pets in the world,” he said. “You can even walk them around on a leash.”
Whatever the pet, Ratner said in today’s family, they have a seat at the table.
“We don’t have those big, extended families,” he said. [Pets] fill a void – and they don’t talk back to you.”
