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It takes a certain sort of person to devote themself to raising a different species—though being a pet mom certainly has its appeal. Sure, one’s non-human progeny aren't likely to grow up to be president, to solve climate change, to make great art, or even just to be an adult who is somewhat indebted to aid you in your old age. But unlike human children, pets don’t give you stretch marks, or labor pains, or crayon on the walls, and you can be certain that the chances of them growing up to resent you are truly nonexistent. All pets really need is your care and the occasional use of your opposable thumbs. In return, you get love and companionship and the kind of unwavering appreciation that even the most devoted offspring can’t consistently provide. A pet and its human are in this thing together, and in some cases—like with certain species of birds and turtles—for a very long time. (This can be a good or a bad thing depending on your perspective. Says Louann, whose flock includes five parrots and one toco toucan: “The good thing is you don’t have to save money for college, but they do never leave.”)
The pet moms photographed for this story understand the peculiarities and particular privileges that come with the territory. Some have human children in addition to their interspecies brood; others don’t. Some stick to only one species; others raise a variety. Some manage rescues and shelters, others only the careers of burgeoning social media stars. All of them consider their pets to be part of the family, which means they have many of the responsibilities of a parent, but rarely the same respect. (Or accomodation: though pets can occupy a place in the home and heart equal to a person, in the eyes of U.S. law they’re more akin to possessions.) During quarantine, Ulla Bazant operated her Manhattan-based textile design business, Blue Boa Studio, out of the same space where she lives with her pomeranian, two cats, an aviary full of finches, and a pair of African Grey parrots who often swoop around her loft on periodic “joyrides.” Occasionally, a visiting client asks whether she could get rid of the birds. “You hear a lot of people complaining about their kids at home during lockdown,” Bazant says, “and no one ever suggests, ‘Well, maybe they could go live on a farm.’”
As for the allure of pet parenting, even with the hours spent feeding and cleaning and having mostly one-sided conversations—well, love is a funny thing. “I certainly could tell you all the different ways pet ownership helps in lowering cholesterol and blood pressure and helping people relieve social isolation, all that stuff,” says Dr. Katherine Compitus, the founder of Surrey Hills Sanctuary, a non-profit micro-farm in upstate New York. But to her the most important part is the power of healing that our relationship with animals offers. “It brings us a deeper connection and deeper meaning with nature, with the world, with other humans, with ourselves.”
It’s often also a way of being a parent—with all of the nurturing and devotion the term implies—on one’s own terms. And it’s worth noting that unlike rearing humans, who now must unavoidably be raised with the awareness of several existential threats to continued life on earth, with pets, the natural order of things is simpler and also sweeter: life abides by a feeding schedule, pockets are always full of treats and toys or tucked away hands just waiting to pet, and things like politics and plague are simply beyond the realm of comprehension. It makes you want to live up to their standard.
For many of these women, sharing their lives with these pets is also the realization of a lifelong goal. “So maybe that’s the best part,” says Louann, “I’m living my dream, you know?”
Ulla Bazant
“They feed my soul,” textile designer Ulla Bazant says of her New York City menagerie, which includes a pomeranian, a Bengal and a regular housecat, two African Grey parrots, and an aviary full of finches. “I can’t imagine for one second that my work wouldn’t suffer if I didn’t have them. In the morning when I come back from walking my dog, before I start working, I have my coffee, and I just sit there for a few minutes and watch the finches and listen to their singing. That is the time in the morning that they start to really sing. And their song is so beautiful. I think about the day, and what I’m supposed to work on, and that time in the morning with them is so precious. I really feel that centers you. It inspires me so much.” And at the end of the day, Bazant continues: “The peace that comes over you when you have your tea or your wine or whatever and you have a cat and a dog at your foot and the parrot is laughing in your own laugh watching a TV show with you. It’s amazing. They just provide me so much joy.”
“I get two extremely odd questions at least once every time I walk them,” Bazant says of her two African Grey parrots, Lola and Gianni. “The first is: ‘Are those your pets?’ Which is crazy to me, because is the assumption that there are parrots living in Central Park and they chose me to land on, and I'm walking around, like, ‘I hope these birds leave me alone at some point!’? The second question I get is ‘Are they real?’ And I find that so creepy because that implies that I purchased artificial parrots and I attached them to my body and I walk around like that. I’m always mystified. Why do people think that they're not real? They're very much alive and making sounds.”
“Children especially really love them. I let kids hold Lola or put her on their shoulder and take pictures. People go: ‘Isn't this annoying? Aren’t you bothered?’ And I go, no, because every child that holds them may grow up to be an animal lover or become educated about the parrot, and that makes me happy. I don't mind stopping and answering people’s questions, and the kids are so happy. It makes me happy to make my fellow New Yorkers happy, you know?”
Sami Chen
“People who don't have rabbits don't know that bunnies can be really, really smart,” says fashion designer Sami Chen. Her bunny, Miffy, has nearly 90,000 Instagram followers. “Dogs will just lay next to you and sleep next to you. Bunnies are prey animals, so they're always aware of everything; it's not easy to earn their trust, so once you do, it's really really special. And bunnies are really forgiving, too. Bunnies will fight with each other, and then after a while they apologize by [putting] their forehead on another bunny’s forehead, and that’s them apologizing, and then they’ll be good again.” Chen had a baby three months ago, and Miffy took an active role in her pregnancy on social media, nuzzling and cuddling her mother’s growing belly, which Chen captured on Instagram to the delight of her rabbit’s followers. Since her son Skye was born, sometimes the nanny will find Miffy in Skye’s nursery, keeping watch while his parents are asleep. “I was really surprised because I thought, you know, after the baby’s born maybe he just cares about me,” Chen says, “but he also cares about the baby.”
Chen first got Miffy while she was living in Taiwan. She had to leave him behind when she moved to New York, but when she found out that he was being seriously neglected by his new owner, she found a way to get him back, and into the country, too. It was a hard period for them both. “I want to make it up to Miffy,” Chen says. These days she won’t travel without him if she can help it: Miffy has been photographed everywhere from brunch on the Upper West Side to superyachts and a plane’s cockpit. (Miffy is an emotional support animal.) Chen is also considering making the mommy-and-me trappings she currently provides for Miffy more widely available to his fans.
“I find that people who have bunnies are really kind people, and if they also want to take their bunnies to meet up they must be super kind and lovely,” says Chen, who organized a bunny meet-up in New York on Easter Sunday for pet rabbits and their owners. “They are really, really nice, and they all help each other. We’ll share our experiences, and if we can help other bunnies.” She has begun talking to her husband about whether they can add another new addition to their family: a dog. “My husband is like, we should take it easy. We just had a baby.” It’s probably for the best: for now, Chen says Miffy prefers cats.
Ria Trotter
Eight years ago, Ria Trotter, a labor and delivery nurse, reached out to Lonely Grey Rescue in Woodbridge, New Jersey, looking to adopt a parrot. She ended up volunteering there, and soon she fell in love—with the operation, and the birds it rescues, but also with its founder, Dan Radzik. They married, and now they have eight dogs, six ferrets, three tortoises, some hedgehogs, chickens, countless parrots, and an 18-month-old son. Lonely Grey has similarly expanded, and now has four different locations and a track record of starting 12,000 adoptions. “Whatever finds us is kind of how the menagerie works,” Trotter says of the furred and feathered family members. “I have to count heads when I come home and make sure no one is added to the crew.” They wouldn’t have it any other way. “My husband would be bored, and I would be bored, and my son loves it, he’s got no fear of animals whatsoever, he thinks everybody’s a friend. I don't know if that's just how kids are, or that's just him, but he's never had an issue. He doesn’t call me ‘Mama’—he calls me ‘Dada’—but he knows every single one of our dog’s names. I’m like, I think they rate quite high on his list. It’s all good.”
As for what it’s like to be the head of such a large interspecies family, Trotter says it’s a lot like any family. “Your relationship with each of them is so different. As with anything, you have some that need you more than others, and there are some that you need more. You know that you can go to this one if you need to be consoled, if you want to throw a ball you’re going to call the other one. And everybody works as a big unit.” Birds are typically the most emotional of an already devoted group. “We’ve had older birds here who have died and they're saying last words like ‘I love you,’ and ‘Goodbye.’ It’s very human. It gets you. And then you have a dog that doesn't need words because they'll show you how loyal they are,” says Trotter. “Really, there’s nothing like walking in the door and seeing all the wagging tails and jumping around and just excitement to see you; there's nothing in the world that can love you like your kids or your dogs or your cats—any animal.”
Laurie Silber
“Pom Mom” Laurie Silber has six pomeranians, all of whom are a little famous. Milk, a rescue with a wide natural smile, is the biggest star, with an active Instagram and both acting and modeling credits to his name, including a several episode arc on Disney Channel’s Dog with a Blog TV series and a Kate Spade campaign. All the poms can be hired to attend bar mitzvahs, birthdays, weddings, store openings, and other events. Though Silber notes that some of her dogs, like Milk and Bling, are the more natural performers, all of them still get dressed up. “You know what, it's just that honestly, on a daily basis, they give me a little daily dose of happiness. And that's why I dress them,” Silber says. “Because when we were in quarantine and everything was dull and boring, and you look over and you see six little tiny pomeranians, one with a smile, dressed and cute, it’s a lot of positive energy. They put a lot of positive energy into our house.”
Even Silber is sometimes surprised by the sense of presence they provide. “I went to a couple of events with Milk in L.A. and when I came back, someone said, how does it feel traveling by yourself? And I said, you know what, you made me just realize that I was traveling by myself,” Silber says. “Because I felt like I had a companion the entire time. I didn't feel alone. I didn't feel alone in the hotel, I didn't feel lonely, I felt like I had a full companion with me.”
Silber also has three adult sons. She thinks that sometimes growing up they got a little jealous. “When they were younger, I heard little comments: ‘She’s paying more attention to the dogs than us!’ I heard little digs every now and then as I’d be dressing the dogs and getting them ready for their day. But they love the dogs.” Her youngest is now off to college, typically a moment of stress for parents—parents of humans. “At this moment in my life, I feel that I’m never going to be an empty nester,” says Silber. “That's what I love about it. I don’t think I’ll ever have that empty nester feeling, because I live with six pets. And you’re still busy! You buy them food, you buy them clothes, you’re worried about their wellbeing, I still take them to the vet, we’re busy.” And they have careers to manage, and people’s minds to change. “Sometimes pomeranians have this rep of being yappy and people don't really love yappy dogs, but they're not,” says Silber. “They're so individual, each has an individual personality, that's a big thing.”
Dr. Katherine Compitus
“You know when you do one of those icebreaker exercises somewhere and they’ll say ‘What's something people don't know about you?’ I’ll say: ‘Well, I have pet bulls,’ and they'll say ‘pit bulls?’ and I’ll say, ‘No no, that too, but I have pet bulls,’ and they’ll say: ‘What?!’ But I do,” says Katherine Compitus, a doctor of clinical social work who co-founded Surrey Hill Sanctuary with her husband in 2013, where two neutered bulls (described as cuddly and stubborn, “like big puppies”) named Callum and Magnus reside alongside two potbellied pigs, two pigeons, 14 chickens, 15 cats (one of whom, Lilou, pictured below, is a paraplegic), and yes, three pit bulls. Compitus also teaches a course on the human-animal bond at NYU Silver’s Doctorate of Clinical Social Work, and she co-founded Surrey Hills to make animal therapy more accessible to survivors of trauma. “I had a teenage boy I was working with, he didn’t want to talk about the sexual abuse that he suffered, but he was able to tell it to my dog Chompy,” she says. “Even though I was in the room, and I heard it, it was easier to tell Chompy than to tell me.” Her work, she says, is “just this really beautiful building on the unconditional love and non-judgment that we get from our relationship with animals.”
“There’s such beauty in the way animals see the world,” Compitus says. “It’s very mindful. They enjoy whatever they’re doing. It’s like Eckhart Tolle: they live in the now. When they’re eating, they’re eating, when they're playing, they’re playing. They’re not worried about what they did in the past, they’re not worried about what's going to happen in the future.” Animals, she says, have taught her how to ground herself, how to be herself, how to appreciate herself, and “how to appreciate other people for who they are, rather than who we wish somebody was.” It sounds silly, she says, but really what they’ve given her is a deeper appreciation and enjoyment of life: “Because through their eyes it's just such a beautiful thing.”
Louann
“There are some myths or perceptions people have about ‘bird people,’” Louann says. It’s why she started her Instagram account, @ParrotsRUs, in which she depicts “the good, the bad, and the ugly” of her life with what she calls her feathered kids: five parrots and one toco toucan. (She and her husband choose not to share their last name online, so their fans and followers sometimes call them Mr. and Mrs.Parrotsrus , or Mr. and Mrs. P.) “I had this desire to show that just because you share your life with birds doesn’t mean that you can’t still keep a happy and clean home. My molding’s not chewed up, you know, we still have a nice place here. You can train your birds and put those boundaries in place just like you would with kids. I wanted to be a good role model.”
She also wanted to connect with fellow bird owners, to share recipes and cleaning methods and interesting new studies and data about avian health and happiness, and how to best raise a being with the intellectual capacity of a human five year old, the temperament of a human two year old, and wings. “I thought I had a unique idea, and I opened up my account and found this incredible bird community that was kind, gentle, supportive, open, and curious,” she says. “I think I just recognized the fact that we shared something very different and special” On her website, Collaborating4AvianWellness, she sources the best in parrot nutrition and entertainment from trusted small businesses and sells them bundled, like a meal kit, to cut down on the significant amount of time and expense required to shop and prepare optimized meals for birds. (They have even branched out into their own line: Louann and her 27 year old African Grey, Kramer, now have a collection at Top’s Parrot Food which includes their names and pictures on the label.) “We’re mission driven,” she says of the companies she works with, “we share this mission of improving the lives of birds, and also the people that care for them. It’s become a little bit of a ministry, like I’m helping others, but at the same time it's evolved into a small business for me.” And her following has only grown. “I think I’m at 136,000 followers, and I rarely have any negativity. I love that about this community.”
“Every bird that we have as a member of our family has been a goal,” says Louann, who first fell in love with exotic birds at age 5 and spent the rest of her adolescence educating herself about them at her local library. “I’ve read so much about them over the years. They’re my dream birds. My husband shares in these dreams as well.” Romantic vacations to places like the Caribbean and Mexico had the couple meeting exotic birds and finding excuses to go back and see them again, until building their own aviary became a reality.
The couple’s toco toucan is named Prince, after the musician, who also inspired much of the home’s decor and much devotion in Mr. P. Acquiring a toucan in a house full of parrots was a little controversial. “I had people tell me that toucans aren’t supposed to get along with parrots—they don’t in the wild,” Louann says, but she followed the advice she often doles out on social media: she did her research, she made a plan, and she made it work. “I managed to achieve something that people never thought I would, and that I almost didn’t try because people said that I shouldn’t,” she says. “It’s another big goal that just would have seemed unachievable if I’d listened to what people told me.”
Photo Assistant: Davis Fowlkes
Special thanks to Cat Long