Do animals keep pets?

Visions of the Rewilding Renaissance
#1

an interesting article
http://theprancingpapio.blogspot.com/2010/07/do-animals-keep-pets.html

Herzog points out that while some animals are documented having pets, this behavior almost always happen in captive or semi-captive environment where food and shelter are provided. The author believes that humans are “true” pet owners because the owner-pet relationship occurs in a natural setting and argues that animal pet owners are not “true” pet owners because they do so in captive or semi-captive settings. Thus, Herzog believes that humans are the only animals that keep pets.

Looks like another case of “humans are exempt from the logic we apply to the rest of the living world”. What makes Herzog think humans are free ? If anything id say his observations point to the idea that humans are either domesticated and/or captive. At least our interactions seems similar to observed behaviour of other captive/domesticated animals.

#2

Woah. Yeah. Nice thoughts timeLESS.

#3

While I agree with your general take on this timeLESS, it is clear that free and wild people have lived with dogs for a very long time.

#4

That is a logical conclusion indeed, timeLESS. Amazing. Thanks for that. I need to read the full article, too…

About free people living with dogs - i think the key word here is with. It is less of an ownership relationship than others. When I took my dog with me to university and people asked about the dog, I always said that “this dog is with me”, I did not say it is “my dog” and I never noticed that until some people told me that it is an unconventional way to say this. But it reflects my idea, that it is not ownership.

Also dogs probably have not been pets from the beginning, but rather have been useful animals - assisting in hunting or protection and getting food in return. To keep dogs for enjoyment (as pets are defined in the article) developed most likely a lot later.