Some people prefer their pets to humans. Leona Helmsley, a hotelier, left $12 million to her dog.

By ERICA GOODE

Humans are an overrated species, or so Leona Helmsley apparently believed.
The New York real estate tycoon briefly considered giving some of her billions to other humans - indigent people, to be specific - but later changed her mind, leaving instead up to $8 billion in a charitable trust solely for the care and welfare of dogs. She favored her Maltese, Trouble, over her family, providing $12 million for the dog in her will, a lot more than she left her grandchildren.
The news of the extent of Mrs. Helmsley’s charitable bequest was greeted this month with outrage about misguided priorities and jokes about a wealthy woman so arrogant that only a canine could abide her.
But Mrs. Helmsley was hardly the first person to deem the companionship of pets more gratifying than that of people, raising the question of how common such sentiments are and whether they represent a reasonable choice in a world of fickle and unpredictable two-legged creatures.
The field of psychotherapy has traditionally viewed those whose closest relationships are with animals as somehow lacking, their affections pathologically misplaced, their devotion a symptom of their inability to forge healthy connections with the humans around them.
But in recent years, researchers have begun to take far more seriously the bonds between humans and animals - perhaps unsurprising in a society where more than 68 million households include one pet - and to evaluate those relationships in a more positive light.
“There are whole segments of the population that prefer being in the company of dogs than people, and I’m not sure that’s such a negative thing,” said Joel Gavriele- Gold, a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City and the author of “When Pets Come Between Partners.”
To Dr. Gavriele-Gold, the intensity of the relationship between people and their pets is unsurprising.
“Humans tend to be very disappointing - notice our divorce rate,” Dr. Gavriele- Gold said. “Dogs are not hurtful and humans are. People are inconsistent and dogs are fairly consistent.”
Still, he said, he has seen patients who, betrayed and wounded in childhood, have turned to a cat or dog for the uncritical support and love they never received.
“If you grew up in an atmosphere where you were abused, you’re not going to have a high regard for people,” he said.
Bennett Roth, also a psychoanalyst in New York City, recalled a woman he once treated who viewed the years of her life through the lens of what dog or cat she owned at the time.
“The cats were essentially more reliable to her than her family had been, and she didn’t feel safe with other people,” Dr.
Roth said.
In other cases, a pet can provide an outlet for unpleasant traits, like a need to control others or an inability to grant other people autonomy.
Dr. Gavriele-Gold described one patient as “a total control freak” who became a dog trainer. “It worked out really well for him,” he said. “He was able to marry a woman who was totally laid-back, and he had no desire to control her because he was able to do it with the dogs.”
Healthy or not, Mrs. Helmsley did not go quite as far in her devotion as some others. She may have backed her love for Trouble with millions, but she never quite declared the bond exclusive.
Others do. A Web site in England, www. marryyourpet.com, features testimonials from pet owners who claim, seriously or not, that their relationships with their dogs or cats are primary. And Marc Bekoff, an animal researcher in Colorado, said he was startled recently at a meeting when a woman kept talking about her “significant other.”
It turned out, he wrote in an e-mail , that she was talking about a beagle.