Today’s typical American family is apt to leave their pet-friendly home (perhaps one whose kitchen has a built-in dog feeding station), pack up their pet-friendly car (perhaps equipped with special doggie seat belts) and leave for a pet-friendly vacation (perhaps at Camp Unleashed in the Berkshires, where they can hike, swim and camp with their dog at their sides).

On the way, they might outfit the pooch with a pair of “Doggles” – sports goggles for dogs – to protect his eyes when he sticks his head out the window.

Before heading back home they might drop him off, not just for a bath, but for the “complete line of spa services” – washing, blow dry, massage and pedicure – such as that available at Olde Towne Pet Resort in Fairfax, Va., where overnight dog accommodations can run $90 a night.

A new survey finds that the family dog is sitting prettier than ever – more popular, more coddled, more considered, some might say even more human, than ever before.

“I read somewhere that, not too many years ago, 80 percent of dogs lived outside. Today, 80 percent live inside,” said Tom Berger, co-owner of The Pretentious Pooch, a dog boutique in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood. “There is definitely this paradigm where pets are moving from physically outside and emotionally outside to physically inside and emotionally inside.

“What’s behind that trend, I don’t know – enlightenment?”

Powerful bond

Whether it’s a matter of dogs finally getting their due, an increasing human need for companionship (in its most loyal, least confrontational form), or another step in the evolution of the always symbiotic human-dog relationship that began with the domestication of wolves 15,000-plus years ago, there is little dispute that the powerful bond between the two has never been stronger.

As the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association put it, “If you’re worried that you may be obsessed with your dog just because he has his own cell phone, frequent flier miles and page on MySpace, you’re not alone.”

The APPMA’s National Pet Owners Survey, released last month, found that pet ownership is at its highest level ever, with 71.1 million households (63 percent) in the U.S. owning at least one pet. That’s up from 69 million households in 2004, 64 million households in 2002 and 51 million households in 1988, when APPMA’s research began.

Those numbers help explain the mushrooming number of doggie boutiques, gourmet dog treat makers and, at the other end of the, uh, spectrum, the proliferation of poop-scooping companies that will haul your dog’s waste away – Inside Scoop, Doody Calls and Scooper Hero Dog Waste Removal Service, to name just three in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C., area.

And Americans are spending more on dogs, and pets in general, than ever before, with sales expecting to top $50 billion annually by the end of the decade, the APPMA predicts.

But beneath those numbers, beyond what we casually discount as “pampering,” there’s something else at play – another full step, it seems, in the evolution that has seen dogs go from worker to companion to family member, or even soul mate.

Fido is no longer that friendly lump of fur in the backyard; today, he lives inside, has his own bed, his own toothbrush and a more human name. He’s no longer an afterthought when it comes to family life; but more often what schedules, big purchases and vacations revolve around.

“Expect the trend of the humanization of pets to continue,” The Herman Group, a business futurist organization, advised two years ago. “As more baby boomers become empty-nesters, they will seek to fill the vacuum left by their departed children with the four-legged variety … (who) will affect how we function day-to-day, take vacations and even choose residences.”

The empty nest

“There’s no question,” said Daniel Rubin, 51, a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, whose recent decision to adopt a dog was influenced by the impending departure of his two teenage sons for college in the fall. “We’re going from two boys in the house to no boys in the house.”

Getting a dog, he said, was “a way of avoiding the void” – escaping feelings of loneliness, having no purpose or, worse yet, being over the hill.

“The idea of just the two of us – it would make us feel old,” Rubin said. The Bouvier Des Flandres pet he and his schoolteacher wife, Mimi, adopted “totally limits our ability to travel and do stuff. We’re pinned down in the home again. But I think we sort of like the job.”

Practice pals

Dogs once were valued for the work they did – as hunters, herders, guards and more. Today, people get pets primarily for the company, especially when a relationship ends – after a breakup, divorce or the death of a spouse.

On top of boomers feathering their empty nests with dogs, many young couples bring home a dog as practice for raising children – or maybe instead of raising children.

The increase in the dog population, and recent declines in the birth rate nationally, have led to city parks where there are more dogs at play than children.

In some American neighborhoods, and even entire cities – Seattle, for one – canines outnumber kids.

Once upon a time, dogs were dogs.

This was back when we went to pet supply stores, instead of doggie boutiques; before kennels became doggie resorts, before bars offered dog friendly “yappy hours;” before there were animal acupuncturists, psychics and masseuses in the yellow pages; before the advent of doggie day care, complete with the canine version of the nanny cam.

Friendly home design

Not only are there more pets – 74.8 million dogs and 88.3 million cats, according to the APPMA survey – but the vast majority are nearly full-time indoor-dwellers, often with a door of their own, a nook of their own, sometimes even a room of their own.

More homeowners are incorporating the needs of their cats and dogs into their home design – installing lower windows that allow pets to see out, built-in sleeping nooks and see-through pet doors.

Cat-lover Lierra Lenhard, who designed her home seven years ago, included pet friendly features such as a feeding area, fans in closets that would contain litter boxes and numerous cat doors, one of which leads from the second floor onto a catwalk that spans her open great room.

“I thought it would be fun, knowing how they like to climb on things and be high up,” said Lenhard, of Phoenix.

The catwalk matches the rest of the house’s cherry-colored trim, contains lighting and serves to break up the vast space, which has a 24-foot high ceiling. Mainly, though, it’s for the cats – Chloe, Toes, Boo Boo and Sammy.

“I think people are thinking more about making their pets’ lives enjoyable,” Lenhard said, “though maybe not as obsessively as me.”