Pets may be federally protected tenants

SOLDOTNA, Alaska - Dante is not your typical home health aide, and his presence is causing a scrap with the landlord.
The wrinkly, hairless gray cat helps Miranda Monet feel at home and comforts her when she cries, she says. A nurse practitioner prescribed the cat to help with Monet's treatment for manic depression and a traumatic brain injury that saps short-term memory.
"He calms me down," Monet said, stroking the cat on her sofa in a small living room ringed by posters of wolves. "If I start to get upset, he knows it before I do. He senses it."
Dante is somewhat cold toward visitors, though, casting an icy stare that leads Monet to offer, "He's a one-person cat."
Companion animals like Monet's are an increasingly popular treatment, and advocates for the disabled say too often landlords and store owners don't recognize they have a legal basis.