Session Alignment

On any given afternoon in San Francisco ’s Marina district , dogs fill the streets and parks , the outdoor cafes and shops .

They keep appointments with their masseurs and acupuncturists ; they sit for portraits and for readings with their astrologers .

Over the objections of no less than the federal government , they romp unleashed .

The Marina is dog country and no one here sees anything the least odd about it .

San Francisco is home to 745,000 people and an estimated 110,000 dogs , packed into an insular fiefdom just seven miles long and seven wide .

Not coincidentally , it also has the lowest ratio of children to adults of any major U . S . city :

There is little doubt that dogs are helping fill a parental void - especially in the affluent Marina .

But beyond canine couture and doggie day care , something unusual is happening in San Francisco .

Residents are taking seriously the notion that dogs are family members , and pets are acquiring something that begins to resemble rights .

The San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals established the nation ’s first no - kill shelter and built an adoption center with “ condos ” furnished with televisions and aquariums .

“ San Francisco is in the vanguard , ” says James Serpell , a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Veterinary School , “ but it ’s not just in San Francisco .

People increasingly regard their pets as quasi persons , or honorary persons , and the laws in most places just haven ’t caught up with this moral sea change . ”