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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: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Sunday October 01 2017, @04:24PM
I sure do love animals, pork chops and beef are delicious. Oh you didn't mean like that? I like all our cats and dogs, I have never tried to eat them. I would prefer not to but I recon I could if needed, after all they are animals. They are not some kind of human- or baby analogues as some people like or prefer to think or view them as. I guess from my perspective that is the difference between the people that love animals and the once that could care less, it's utilitarian or if you empower your animals/pets and make them part of your family. I like our cats and dogs, I liked and cared for all the animals on the farm -- in the end they are still slaughtered when their time comes, but I don't think of them as humans.
That sounds utterly stupid. This has got to be written by stupid city-folks. Farmers took in animals cause they cared? So it had nothing to do with hunting, protection, helping to herd or say killing small vermin such as rodents. They just did it cause they are good people and people that don't have pets are soulless monsters that doesn't or can't care for the planet?
Keeping animals in an urban environment if anything is beyond cruel. I pity the cats and dogs that get to live in an apartment in the city all their life. Sitting around staring out a window or if they are lucky once or twice per day they get dragged around the block or into a little "park", as close to nature as they are ever going to get. If anything their owners in that case are the monsters, their own need to control, domesticate and have companionship superseding the need of the animal(s).