If you share your home with companion animals — aka pets — how do you think of your non-human housemates?

Are the felines, canines, rabbits, birds, reptiles, rodents and even fish we keep for personal companionship and enjoyment more comparable to a microwave oven, or a child? Are they mere property, whose value can be determined solely on an economic basis?

We believe most people who keep pets do not think of them strictly as property, even if — understandably — most don't go so far as to consider them comparable to children. It's clear to most people who have close associations with animals that these "other specied" friends have emotions and personality, can feel physical pain and loneliness and develop close personal relationships with their human keepers.

Yet in the Western legal tradition, animals are considered merely "property." Even before French philosopher Descartes declared that animals are no more feeling or cognitive than rocks, human law has allowed, even justified, animal cruelty and neglect. Those who keep animals, whether sheep or gerbils, are legal "owners," and as such, their rights often trump most claims of suffering or mishandling of animal "property."

But times are beginning to change: Last autumn the New York Bar Association held a widely-publicized conference to discuss "The Legal Status of Non-Human Animals." Pioneering chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall has declared that it's time to stop thinking of animals "as 'things,' mere objects that can be bought, sold, discarded, or destroyed at an owner's whim."

Boulder is no stranger to pioneering progressive causes, and tonight the City Council has a chance to blaze a new trail in the area of animal welfare: A proposed omnibus ordinance revising the city's animal licensing and regulation includes a provision that would change the word "owner" to "guardian."

Nationally, the move to make such subtle linguistic shifts has been driven by the group In Defense of Animals, which first proposed the change in San Francisco last year. Locally, the Humane Society of Boulder Valley has piloted the proposal to the council chambers.

Supporters say using "guardian" will quietly help raise awareness that humans have more responsibility toward living things in their keeping than toward inanimate objects. Detractors argue it's just politically correct posturing. Legal staff in Boulder have officially declared no position on the proposal, but have made their biases clear in a memo to council, describing the proposal as "social engineering."

Both sides agree that the language shift would not functionally change the way animal laws are enforced.

Even so, this is not merely a pointless, feel-good proposal. Veterinarian Elliot Katz, founder of In Defense of Animals, has eloquently written, "As past liberation movements have repeatedly proven, the way we speak is a precursor to the way we act."

It's instructive to remember some of those past liberation movements, human though they are: Remember, at one time, children and slaves were considered property and were subsequently used, abused and even discarded or killed.

We're not declaring that all animals must be accorded the full rights that humans should enjoy. But as most people know intuitively, animals should be given more rights and respect than, say, a toaster.

The city council should endorse this subtle linguistic change, which costs nothing to the taxpayer but means so much in the fight against animal abuse. Let's not be afraid to become a national leader on yet another worthy progressive cause.