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posted by martyb on Sunday October 01 2017, @11:59AM   Printer-friendly
from the Bow-Wow-Meow-Squeak! dept.

The recent popularity of "designer" dogs, cats, micro-pigs and other pets may seem to suggest that pet keeping is no more than a fad. Indeed, it is often assumed that pets are a Western affectation, a weird relic of the working animals kept by communities of the past.

About half of the households in Britain alone include some kind of pet; roughly 10m of those are dogs while cats make up another 10m. Pets cost time and money, and nowadays bring little in the way of material benefits. But during the 2008 financial crisis, spending on pets remained almost unaffected, which suggests that for most owners pets are not a luxury but an integral and deeply loved part of the family.

Some people are into pets, however, while others simply aren't interested. Why is this the case? It is highly probable that our desire for the company of animals actually goes back tens of thousands of years and has played an important part in our evolution. If so, then genetics might help explain why a love of animals is something some people just don't get.

[...] The pet-keeping habit often runs in families: this was once ascribed to children coming to imitate their parents' lifestyles when they leave home, but recent research has suggested that it also has a genetic basis. Some people, whatever their upbringing, seem predisposed to seek out the company of animals, others less so.

Is the desire to keep pets really hard-wired in our DNA?


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by tfried on Sunday October 01 2017, @07:21PM

    by tfried (5534) on Sunday October 01 2017, @07:21PM (#575653)

    yet, despite my antipathy, animals seem to cozy up to me much more quickly than they do most other people, or so I have been told again and again.

    Plausible, esp. for cats. For the most part, they dislike being looked in the eye, people approaching them (rather than the other way around), or even being followed around. Instead you're probably trying to ignore the cat as much as you can and - voila - you seem like a nice guy to the cat.

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