As more Argentines go childless, pampered dogs become part of the family

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Venus gazes in bewilderment at the candles flickering on her mini birthday cake. The partygoers crowd around her in expectant silence, but she doesn't blow them out.

Dogs can't blow candles, after all. So Venus' owner intervened, drawing a breath and extinguishing the flames to a round of applause before serving her black mixed-breed a bite of meat-flavored birthday cake.

''Venus is like my daughter,'' gushes Victoria Font, founder of Barto Cafe, a bakery making cakes for canines just south of Argentina's capital of Buenos Aires.

About two decades ago, a birthday party for pampered pets featuring a custom cake for dogs may have struck Argentines as bizarre.

But these days Buenos Aires makes headlines for having among the most pet owners per capita in the world. Public opinion surveys report pets in almost 80% of the city's homes. That's about 20% more than the average city in the United States, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, and leaps and bounds ahead of other countries in the region.

As a growing number of Argentines opt to be childless in a country notorious for its economic instability, dogs have become the go-to companion.

Buenos Aires is now home to over 493,600 dogs — compared to 460,600 children under the age of 14 — government statistics show.

Those interviewed referred to themselves not as ''owners'' but as ''parents.''

''Sandro is my savior, he's my joy,'' Magalí Maisonnave, a 34-year-old stylist, said of her dachshund.

In the soccer-crazed country, Maisonnave often dresses Sandro up in the jersey of her favorite team, River Plate, and takes him to local games.

''I'm his mama," she said.

‘You have to give them the best'

Argentina's rising passion for dogs has coincided with falling human fertility. In 2023, Argentina's birth rate was 6.5% lower than the previous year and 41% lower than it was a decade ago. Kindergartens report struggling to fill classrooms.

No longer able to afford bigger purchases amid a succession of economic crises, Argentina's middle and upper classes are splurging on their pets. With unemployment rising, public sector wages falling and the economy just emerging from a recession under Argentina's libertarian President Javier Milei, pups have become precious relatives.

''It's harder to access loans or own a home; there's no longer a set way to form a family,'' said Dr. Marcos Díaz Videla, a psychologist specialized in human-canine relationships. ''Animals are becoming part of the family. With humans, they're shaping the dynamics, rituals and routines inside the home.''

The tendency for pet owners to treat their dogs like kids is changing the cityscape as pet hotels, boutiques, cafes and even cemeteries spring up in Buenos Aires to cash in on the craze.

Pet beauty salons now pull out all the stops, providing not only baths and trims but pedicures and poolside spas. The Guau Experience parlor, for instance, charges up to $120 — roughly a quarter of the average Argentine monthly salary — for washing, cleaning, shining, conditioning, trimming and perfuming.

''They're living beings who don't stay around long. During that time, you have to give them the best,'' said Nicole Verdier, owner of Argentina's first-ever dog bakery, Chumbis, which makes cookies, cakes, croissants, burgers and canapés from gourmet meat, chicken and pork.

This humanizing of dogs has even inspired a new noun — "perrhijo" — a fusion of the Spanish word for ''dog'' and ''child.''

Dog mania takes Buenos Aires

In Buenos Aires, where leash-pullers outnumber stroller-pushers in many neighborhoods, lawmakers have proposed a range of pet-friendly initiatives, including bills to ease access for pets to public transport.

''The city has come a long way, but I believe it now has the obligation to take a bigger leap,'' said local lawmaker Emmanuel Ferrario. His centrist ''Vamos por más'' (Let's go for more) party has presented five such bills now being debated in the city legislature. One seeks to create a registry of dog walkers who must pass an exam every two years and undergo CPR and animal behavior training.

''I see an opportunity for it to become the most pet-friendly city in the region,'' Ferrario said.

Other politicians fret about the proliferation of pet-keeping as a symptom of a bigger crisis. They ask why young people in Argentina choose raising pets over raising children as the country ages rapidly.

''The rankings (of pet ownership) are unsettling. ... Buenos Aires has so many dogs and so few children,'' said Clara Muzzio, the city's conservative deputy mayor. ''A world with fewer children is a worse world.''

A presidential pet lover

Perhaps Argentina's most prominent dog fanatic is its right-wing President Javier Milei, who moved into the government house in December 2023 with four English mastiffs that he calls his ''four-legged children.''

A brash TV personality elected to rescue Argentina from its spiraling economic crisis, Milei named Murray, Milton, Robert and Lucas after the three libertarian American economists he most admires — Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman and Robert Lucas. The dogs are genetic clones of Milei's former dog, Conan, who died in 2017.

Milei still refers to Conan in the present tense, leading to intense speculation about the number of dogs he owns. Since assuming office, his dogs have remained out of sight. A government resolution prohibiting officials from disclosing information to the public about Milei's mastiffs has done little to tamp down on the controversy.

Pet cemeteries

For heartbroken owners without the financial means to genetically duplicate their dead dogs, Argentine morticians prepare burials and cremations.

Demand has surged at Gardens of the Soul, a pet cemetery inside an animal shelter near Buenos Aires, where owners hold emotional rituals to bid their companions farewell and regularly visit their graves.

There are some 300 tombstones painted with classic Argentine canine names, like Negro and Coco, and strewn with photographs, handwritten notes and flowers.

''Before, two months could go by without anyone being buried. Now, it's at least once or twice a week,'' said shelter manager Alicia Barreto, who still mourns her first rescue, a pup she found alive in a bag of dog carcasses thrown on the roadside in 2000.

That grisly image haunts her, she said. But she takes comfort in knowing that, when the time came 10 years later, she gave her ''perrhijo,'' Mariano, a dignified burial.

''I told myself I would find him again,'' she said at his marble tombstone. ''At the moment of my death, or afterward, I'll be reunited with him.''