khaosworks | Just when was that doggy in the window?

Exhibit celebrates 'recent' love affair with pets
By FRANK JULIANO fjuliano@ctpost.com

MILFORD — The two young girls in their fancy dresses are petting their dog, back when Maple Street here was a dirt road.

Very little is known about the photo, including the girls' names, why they were so dressed up, including a bow in the older one's hair.

But the photo, taken by New Haven photographer T.S. Bronson on May 17, 1908, is one of the earlier examples of city residents enjoying their pets.

The original photo, taken on a glass plate, is part of a new exhibit at the New Haven Colony Historical Society, called "Our Furry Friends,'' that examines when and why animals became pets.

Curator Amy Trout, herself a cat-lover, said she noticed that among the society's collection of thousands of glass-plate photographs from the turn of the last century was an astounding number showing people playing with their cats and dogs.

She decided to mount the exhibit, which also includes gilded bird cages and other equipment, to explain how a family's creatures went from being an investment to an expense lovingly made.

"We don't know too much about what is going on in the Milford photo, or who the girls are, but it shows that people 100 years ago, especially children, enjoyed their pets, loved and doted on them,'' Trout said.

While most domesticated animals were a source of food, clothing material and even labor, for families in the Colonial era and in the early years of the United States, historians agree that the Industrial Revolution created a middle class with free time and disposable income.

"It wouldn't be good history to say that there were no pets earlier than the late 19th century, but certainly in the Colonial days animals were not coddled,'' Trout said. "They were not members of the family as they are today. Sometimes it was a matter of survival.''

Chickens provided eggs, cows milk and meat, and sheep wool to area families, she said.

But pets are certainly big business now, with veterinarians doing the kind of complicated surgeries on domestic animals that were once reserved for humans and done only at large reaearch hospitals.

The cost of owning a cat ranges from $491 to $822 in the first year and between $310 and $527 in succeeding years, according to the Web site, PetEducation.com

Dogs can cost from between $511 ad $1,977 in the first year (the higher range includes the purchase of a registered breed) and from $287 to $807 in succeeding years, said Dr. Race Foster, a veterinarian in Rhinelander, Wisc., and co-owner of the site. He estimates that over a typical dog's 14-year life the pet's upkeep will cost its family more than $12,000.

Of course, when it comes to a family member, money is no object, said Trout, the New Haven curator. But when did dogs and cats become family? She believes that it happened as an outgrowth of the reform movement in the mid-19th century, at the same time that child welfare organizations were created.