Every year during the budget hearings I tell the same joke: If the Hollister City Council really wanted more people to attend they should put dog parks on the agenda, because anything dealing with pets gets a big turnout. That’s a tongue-in-cheek commentary, but there is also an elemental truth in it. People have a deep love for their pets that often exceeds their feelings for other humans.
I have no scientific evidence to prove it, but I do have practical experience – I recently made trips to the local vet and a veterinary hospital to get treatment for our sick cat. All I did was sit in the waiting room and observe the people and their pets to reach my conclusions.
You can feel the love, and if the reason for the visit is anything but routine, you can also feel the worry. In no time at all the waiting room population is swapping stories about the pets they have with them, those at home, and even those that are gone.
Modern diagnosis and treatment of animals uses many of the same tools and techniques applicable to human healthcare including X-rays, ultrasound, lab workups, and chemical and radioactive therapy. And like human healthcare it can be a very expensive proposition – but many people are so attached to their pets that the cost is little object.
The interesting question, the answer to which might help out human-to-human relations, is why does this special bond exist between people and pets? Other animal species have always been used to help physically sustain humans; they did work, provided or helped obtain food, and contributed to our safety.
If you could go back thousands of years when many animals were first domesticated, survival might depend on a dog that helped herd sheep or guard a village, cats were used to control vermin, and both cats and dogs occasionally took on religious significance. The idea of a pet includes almost every domesticated and tamed animal from birds to fish to worms to snakes to tigers, but dogs and cats are the most popular by far. They are classified as companion animals along with birds and horses; I guess you can’t cuddle a goldfish.
According to the American Veterinary Medicine Association, 36 percent of American households own dogs, 30 percent own cats, 3 percent own birds, and 1.5 percent own horses. Many a pet lover would argue that the the ownership equation is the other way around – we know who is really in charge.
People may fight like cats and dogs, but cats and dogs often live together in harmony; people not so much.
When it comes to the bond between people and their pets the key question is, why does that special relationship exist? There is the possibility that the changes that took place over many thousands of years to domesticate animals also changed human beings who had to adapt to caring for those animals, but I believe there is much more involved.
We often see human traits in our pets giving us a window to our own feelings. We imprint, and they often adopt, the personalities we want in our lives. They return our love, provide comfort, and they are never judgmental. They need us, and we want and need to be needed.
Your pet loves you for who you are and how you treat them, not how you look, the car you own, or the aftershave or perfume you use. Their love is basic, and that lifts the human spirit.
