MEDIUM RARE

Robina Gokongwei Pe was right all along, 15 or more years ago, when she predicted that pets would be the next great thing to happen to business.
Look at them now. Dressed to the nines, in fancy garments with appropriately fancy accessories, participating in weekend promenades at the mall, lined up to be blessed by a priest at a churchyard, competing in shows for awards and prizes, and generally making heads turn – there are as many puppies being pushed in prams as human babies!

Pets and pet lovers and pet shops, they’re part and parcel of the scenery and not only on St. Francis’ Day every Oct. 4. St. Francis, it was said, could talk to the birds and the beasts. In their own way, less gifted animal lovers speak their own language when communicating with their furry friends.

Among my favorite animal lovers were Joy, whose pet was her beloved Petunia, and Lillian, who sheltered so many stray cats that their younger kin and fellows were “trained” or knew by instinct where to go should they ever get lost.

Joy’s Petunia was big, black, ugly as sin and as heavy as three of me. While Petunia the Pig was her favorite, Joy was actually a professional breeder of dogs. To Joy, taking care of puppies was a science and a business, for which she employed a small staff to look after their needs, especially when it came to the facts of procreation. Still, it was the Pig who ruled the roost. No wonder, when Petunia died of natural causes, Joy went into fulltime mourning. (How many pet cemeteries are there, now that the population of our four-legged friends has been growing?) As for Lillian, it was a wonder her housemates were never tempted to throw out her cats when she wasn’t looking. Sure, every cat has nine lives...

At the time I met her, Belle (not her real name) was not quite 18 but she was already well-known in her city down South as a breeder of dogs, expensive ones, imported, complete with health certificates and adoption papers. Instead of celebrating her debut, the business-minded teen asked her parents for cash to buy more dogs from abroad to grow her paw-erful investment.