Pets and their People

Having just published a book about famous writers and their cats, how could I resist a book called Pets and Their People? This book by Charles Foster is a fascinating glimpse into the role played by pets in the lives of humans. It is a mixture of science, psychology and cultural history. Why did humans invite wolves into their caves and domesticate them? Why do people want to have snakes draped around their necks? Where does the border lie between tame and wild?

The book covers the importance of pets in each stage of our lives. It seems common for people to obtain pet breeds that look like themselves, as the cover of the book shows – what does that say about the pet owner? There’s information on what children and adolescents learn from pets, about pets in the working world, pets in art, increasing sales by appearing in advertising (remember that dog in the famous His Master’s Voice advert, or the labrador puppy chasing loo paper, or the Old English Sheepdog promoting Dulux paint?), pets in poetry, and an intriguing chapter on death and what the loss of a pet can teach us, and some of the extreme ways in which pets have been memorialised after death. I have loved all the pets in my own life, but have never even dreamed of ordering a Swarovski cat flap or a Louis Vuitton dog-carrier or a Hello Kitty Doghouse encrusted with 7,600 crystal beads (even if I could afford such waste). There’s a chapter on pets in religion, interesting information about pet shows, and I loved the information about the origins of the word ‘pet’.

The book examines why people wish to own pets – for companionship, as moral touchstones and role models, as a way of learning who we really are? For more than ten thousand years we have been domesticating animals – do we simply want some wildness in our lives when we have a furry, feathered or scaled creature in our home? Do pets help us communicate?

The pet world is big business. In 2022 expenditure in the UK on pets and related products reached £9.89 million. The pet food market was worth more than £4.1 billion. Owning a dog can cost nearly £2,000 per year, and pet obesity is well over 50% in many parts of the western world. When we give our pets ‘treats’, are we doing it for them or for ourselves?

There was so much fascinating information in this book, which is rich in facts and cultural history, with some good literary references and many amazing anecdotes and stories. The book made me think more carefully about the human need for an animal. I have no desire to share my home with a ferret or a guinea pig or a snake, but another kitten would be awfully nice!

The Bodleian Library in Oxford has an exhibition connected to this book, and also to my book on writers and their cats. It is ‘Pets and their People’, and it runs from 11 March to 27 September, so do go along if you are lucky enough to be in Oxford during that time.