Inside Story

The undying love that furry friends give their owners is nothing short of magical. And actress / director Bryce Dallas Howard understands that connection so deeply that she was moved to direct a documentary, now on Disney+, called Pets.

As Parents magazine reports, Pets explores the myriad of ways animals impact our lives emotionally and socially. After Howard wrapped her 2019 documentary Dads, she knew her next subject had to be about pets. “I have pets and they’ve done a great job domesticating me,” Howard tells Parents. “I was lucky to grow up with pets in my household, and I always just loved and cherished that relationship.”   

Love Knows No Species

Pets tells the heartwarming, emotional, and unique stories of the bonds humans and animals can create with each other. There’s the man behind “Tabby Dates,” a dating app that connects feline owners looking for love. Then there’s the story of a farm dedicated to rehabbing animals with special needs (just try not to tear up at the goat in his specially made prosthetic legs), and a pet adoption center in Japan that specifically brings together senior citizens with senior dogs. 

The stories of animals helping other animals were really powerful for Howard, too. “I loved seeing relationships, not just between pets and their people, but one another,” she says.

Pets features a man named Sergi, an adventurer who kayaks around Europe with his rescue dog, Nirvana. The bond between Sergi and Nirvana is quite moving, but it’s taken up a notch when Sergi adopted a kitten named Goku. Nirvana’s maternal instincts took over, and she didn’t hesitate to allow Goku to nurse on her. “That was beautiful and not something that I ever thought possible. And such an expression of pure love,” says Howard. 

During the filming of Pets, produced by her father Ron Howard’s Imagine Documentaries, she was also struck by the way people related to each other over the benefits of having animals, from how they help regulate your nervous system to how a dog gets you out of the house and moving. “Sometimes people feel they need permission to talk about their pets. Otherwise, they worry people will think, ‘Oh, they’re the crazy cat guy or lady who’s obsessed with her dogs,’” she laughs.

Howard says people often wait for an invitation to share about their pets, even though 66% of households in the U.S. have a pet. “Sometimes human beings get along, and sometimes we don’t. But if we can find things that connect us, that can be very healing and healthy. Pets are something that we can connect over,” Howard shares. “I think about individuals I’ve met who present themselves as very professional until you ask, ‘Do you have a pet?’ and then the childlike version of themselves comes out!”

Pets Through a Child’s Eye

Howard knew she wanted kids to be the main interviews in Pets. Throughout the film, kids share their thoughts on how pets have changed their lives and why they are so important. There’s one story of a boy with a cleft palate who adopted a dog that had a cleft palate too. They were able to understand and support each other in the most beautiful, unspoken way.

“There’s no pretense with kids and their pets. They’re little, very honest adults because they feel very responsible and in charge of these little, vulnerable beings in their life. And it was just wonderful to get insight into that experience,” says Howard. 

While finding the right pets and their owners to feature in the doc, Howard found it so beautiful that everyone had a fellow pet lover to recommend. “Pet owners are a very inclusive, celebratory community. Pet lovers love other pet lovers,” she says. “I really want this to be a TV series because there are so many incredible stories, and I feel like we’ve just scratched the surface.”

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Photo Credit: Debby Wong / Shutterstock.com