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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?
(Score: 2) by tfried on Monday October 02 2017, @08:10PM
An anecdote for an anecdote.
I'm rather a cat-type person, not much into dogs. However, I usually get along fine with dogs, and in fact many dogs seem to distinctively like me. But then there was this one time, when a friends' dog was dead serious about attacking me. Call me a coward, but when that cross-breed with a lot of German Shepard in it came running onto me, I chose to flee into the bathroom, and wait for my friends to lock away the dog before opening the door, again. In hindsight, I think I do understand (some of) the path of events that lead up to this. Importantly, I did not respond well to some early signs of the dog's aggression towards me. But for all I can tell, it's still absolutely fair to say that this dog was hostile to me from the start (several visits earlier).
At any rate, that encounter with this dog did leave a permanent mutual dent in my relation with those friends.
Well, maybe I am a bad person, after all. But then I seem to be able to fool a whole lot of other dogs, quite successfully.