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Tuesday, September 25, 2001
Doggone pretty
Pet owners often choose pooches that resemble their looks, personality
By Dan Parker
Caller-Times

Marsha Wartell, 48, veterinary technician
"I've had people tell me I look like (my dog) because I've always been sort of wiry and athletic and slender."

Hung Cao was driving past Cole Park one spring day in 1998 when he spotted a family sitting in the grass with a sign that said, "Puppies for Sale."
   Cao had been wanting a new dog, so he pulled over to take a look. He found that the family had sold a whole litter of red-nosed pit bulls except for one pup that lay curled up on the grass.
   Something about the tiny puppy tugged at Cao's heart. He decided to adopt it.

Hung Cao, 36, social worker
"My wife says I look like him. ... I would say it's the eyes. We both have slanted eyes."

   "We look alike," explained Cao, 36, a 5-foot-1-inch social worker. "I was the runt. I was a premature kid. I weighed only 5 pounds when I was born. That's why I picked him - because we're both runts."
   Keep an eye on walking trails and veterinarians' waiting rooms around the Coastal Bend, and you'll occasionally spot them: The gray-bearded man holding his gray-bearded schnauzer. The sad-eyed woman walking her sad-eyed basset hound.
   These people look like their dogs, and it's not always a coincidence.
   "Maybe what we're seeing is that people make choices on what pet they'll have based on something that looks familiar to them, what they see in the mirror every day," said Dr. Dana Cable, a professor of psychology at Hood College in Frederick, Md.

Elaine Kaler Bates, 63, retired registered nurse
"(Strangers) say, 'You two look alike.' I'll say, 'That's OK. I think she's pretty.'''

   "Part of it is, I think, our own ego," Cable said. "We like things that are like ourselves, that reinforce our personality. We choose mates we feel compatible with, who somehow complement us, so why wouldn't we also choose pets that way?"
   For others, it is a coincidence that they look like their pets. But it's a happy coincidence.
   Max Miller is a 51-year-old Corpus Christi artist with a gray beard and an unruly crop of gray hair. His dog, Sebastian, is a 5-year-old male English sheepdog with a gray beard and unruly crop of gray hair.

David Spencer, 53, education consultant
"I like to think our eyes look alike. He has very soft, calm-looking eyes."

   "Constantly, people stop me on the street and say, 'Hey, you look exactly like your dog.' I take it as a compliment," Miller said. "I think he's beautiful."
   Jerry Braden also is proud that Annie, his 10-year-old Airedale, looks like him.
   "We both have curly hair, we both have kind of a beard-slash-moustache, and we both have big noses," said Braden, a 54-year-old Corpus Christi businessman. "All my best features and hers kind of match up."

Jerry Braden, 54, technical writer
"We both have curly hair, we both have kind of a beard/moustache, and we both have big noses."

   Elaine Kaler Bates, 63, sports a head full of white, fluffy hair - mirroring the snowy coiffure of Pookie, a Lhasa apso mix. And they're similar in other ways.
   "We're both very sensitive to other people's feelings," said Bates, of Corpus Christi. "I'm a very nurturing type of person. I was a nurse, and a mother. ... And Pookie is the same way. She will go to the one in the family having either physical or emotional pain and snuggle up to them."

Max Miller, 51, artist
"Constantly, people stop me on the street and say, 'Hey, you look exactly like your dog.' I take it as a compliment."

   Marsha Wartell doesn't look like her dog, Scarlet, in the face. It's their body types that sort of match up.
   "I've had people tell me I look like the greyhound, because I've always been sort of wiry and athletic and slender," said Wartell, a 5-foot, 105-pound veterinarian's technician in Corpus Christi.
   In a way, she wishes she could look even more like her dog.
   "I probably have greyhounds because I've always wanted to be tall and slender."


Contact Dan Parker at 886-3753 or parkerd@caller.com

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