"It's a dog's life." -4/5/94-FIT FOR A DOG IN THESE KIND AND GENTLE TIMES, THE DOG'S LIFE - NOT TO MENTION THE PARAKEET'S AND THE RABBIT'S - IS LOOKING PRETTY DOGGONE GOOD.
BYLINE: Monie Heath
"It's a dog's life."
There was a time when that phrase conjured up images of a homeless hound scrapping for bones in a dark, rainy alley. However, thanks to kinder, gentler attitudes, dogs are finally having their day, and a dog's life is looking pretty doggone good. Just look at Checkers and Dominoes, two dalmatians owned by Kristen Teer of Durham.
"They've become the focus of my life. They are my children. In fact, when my dad calls up he always asks how the grandkids are doing," said the newly-married Teer, who celebrates her love of animals, dalmatians in particular, with her new store, Fire Dog: Unique Gifts for Animal Lovers.
"My husband was thrilled when I got the store," she said. "Finally he thought I'd get all the dalmatian stuff out of the house."
That notwithstanding, an entire room of Teer's home is dedicated to the dogs. "It really is their room, even though they still sleep with us at night," she said.
Dominoes and Checkers' room has a wall covered with pawprint paper and trimmed with dalamatian-spotted chairs and rugs and an overwhelming collection of memorabilia honoring Teer's breed of choice.
"I've always loved animals," Teer said. "We fostered baby deer and rabbits all the time I grew up. I got my first dalmatian when I was at UNC-Greensboro. They are so loyal and beautiful. They were actually used to protect the buggies of their masters in the 1800s in Dalmatia, a province of Yugoslavia, where they were bred."
Although dalmatians were used for years in fire stations in a similar fashion, today that tradition is considered to be cruel to dogs. But the images of firefighting and the spotted protector persist as the name of Teer's store implies.
"I've had the idea of doing something with animals for a long time," she said. "My mother is a cat lover and I never could find her enough cat stuff."
Her mother, Susan Teer, is vice president of the Durham Animal Protection Society, which might indicate the source of this sensitivity toward animals.
"I had been a representative for a furniture company out of Santa Fe [N.M.] for two years, so I combined that business experience with my passion for animals and my love of shopping," said Teer. "When I researched my idea, I found that this is a $ 10-million industry and, remarkably, there are really only a few stores in the country devoted entirely to gifts for animals and the people who love them."
Top Dog Teer, as she calls herself on her business cards, said that her store, at Academy Court in Durham, is designed to look like a backyard and make animals and people feel "like they just walked into their yard and everything is sunny."
That does mean customers can bring their animals inside. Teer's dogs are usually there when she is, looking all but identical save their customized leather collars.
Almost everything at Teer's store can be customized. However bizarre the breed or odd the request, Teer will search for the paraphernalia to match pup or cat or rabbit or bird or whatever. Many animals are represented in the store and absolutely everything in the store has an animal motif. Luggage for humans with animal designs, luggage animals with owners in mind. T-shirts declaring that a dog is a girl's best friend and dinnerware embellished with the slogan, "The cook is not responsible for cat hair in the food."
Gourmet goodies (all healthy, of course), herbal flea bandanas, designer sunhats, floormats with pictures of different breeds all nestled down for a nap. The latter is the store's best seller. And look out. Fire Dog Frozen Treats, doggie ice cream in bone-shaped sandwiches, is coming just in time for the dog days of summer.
Teer, who describes herself as a "dinc" - "double-income, no children" - thinks that growing numbers of people like her have made the pet-products industry boom.
"Also," she said, "there's so much more education and awareness about animals in the schools and in the media, we feel we have permission to treat our animals as people. It's not so much indulging them as treating them with worth and honoring them."
Statistics support her. The Pet Industry Association reports that Americans spent as much money on stuff for their animals last year as they did on veterinary care: $ 5 million each. No bones about it, that's a lot of stuff.
Veterinarians are aware of this trend and see examples of it all the time. Durham Animal Hospital owner and veterinarian John Koontz says the trend has grown exponentially in the last five years.
"Folks are more aware and don't seem to be ashamed to spend money on their pets," said Koontz. "People build their lives around their pets and change their lifestyles to accommodate them."
He mentioned a woman who wouldn't work outside the home because she wanted to be able to let her dog out and a man who paid the upkeep, insurance and registration on an old car to use it exclusively for his dog.
"And more then ever," Koontz said, "people are choosing exotic pets. Just today, I had three lemurs in my office and an akbask, an extremely rare breed of Turkish herding dog."
Teer said, "I really can relate to people who include their animals in their lives. I love it when they come tell me about their pets or bring them in. Then I get to show off my girls. It really makes me happy when they find something that looks just like their pet."
Copyright 1994 The Durham Herald Co.
DURHAM HERALD-SUN
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