Pet Man’s Way With Animals Wins Over Kids

It was the moment Michael Gutierrez had been waiting for. The 100-plus kids at Burbank’s St. Francis Xavier School were seated on the floor of the auditorium, eagerly awaiting their visitor’s next move.

The “Pet Man,” as Gutierrez is known in young circles, reached into a cage and, with exquisite timing, pulled out a tiny spaniel puppy, its huge bat-like ears perked straight up in the air. The kids went wild.

“It’s like a Kodak moment,” Gutierrez said. “After 18 years, I still love it when I bring out a big snake or a puppy. The excitement zooms. That’s what it’s all about.”

Gutierrez, 39, is referring to his weekly trips to schools in the East Valley, where he presents animals of all stripes to kids of all ages, and in the process has built a reputation as a Doctor Doolittle who can elicit excitement from even the most jaded audiences.

“Mike isn’t shy about getting down on the floor with the kids, right at their level,” said Margaret McMullen, a St. Francis Xavier teacher and parent. “He’s very personable and he explains everything well.”

The Burbank resident has made a point of visiting schools every Wednesday, his day off as manager of Peggy Wood’s Pet Emporium, since he brought his first group of birds, snakes, crabs and puppies to a local nursery school 18 years ago. Today he brings his mobile menagerie around the Valley.

“I love children and love their reaction to animals,” Gutierrez said. “You see the inquisitiveness of both the kids and the animals. It’s a wonderful moment when they overcome both their feelings of astonishment and fear.”

Gutierrez, decked out in white shorts and a red T-shirt proclaiming, “Be kind to animals, they deserve it,” grabbed a lavender king snake and began wandering through the crowd of first-, second- and third-graders, who squealed with delight as they touched the squirming reptile.

“I like that when Mike asks questions, we can hold the animals,” said 8-year-old Amanda D’Edidio. “I really liked it when the [cockatoo] kissed me.”

Gutierrez got hooked on animals at the age of 8, when the Zoomobile program, a joint effort of the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn. and the Los Angeles Unified School District, brought domestic animals to his school. By age 12, the Los Angeles native found summer work in a tropical fish store.

At 18, Gutierrez enrolled at Loyola Marymount University on an engineering scholarship, but after two years felt a strong pull toward working with animals again. He hooked up with the local pet shop, began the Pet Man program and hasn’t regretted his decision a day since.

Schools are not the only beneficiary of his volunteer efforts. Ten years ago he brought some puppies to Montrose’s Rock Haven Sanitarium, where the director hoped that contact with the animals would stimulate the patients. Gutierrez, who now brings his 5-year-old son along to help, said many of the patients responded so well to the animals that he couldn’t resist returning often to the long-term care hospital.

“I hope that the memory of the excitement of their first contact with animals lasts with kids of all ages, from 4 to 84,” Gutierrez said. “I want the program to be informative and stimulating. I know it brings out the kid in me.”

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