2/2Pet animals “Four legs better?” The Economist June 22nd 2019 ペット
That loving feline
Some of the most popular dogs are roughly cat-sized. Early last year the French bulldog overtook the Labrador retriever as Britain’s most popular pedigree dog; pugs were not far behind. In America, the French bulldog has risen from the 58th most popular pedigree dog to fourth since 2002, according to the American Kennel Club. French bulldogs and pugs have something in common besides size. If you ignore their ears, they look a little like human babies. Their eyes are large and their noses squashed － so much so that many of them suffer from breathing problems.
It has even been suggested that young people are substituting pets for children. Millennials, who are getting around to having kids later than any generation before, reinforce that impression by doting on their “fur babies”. For all that, it is probably wrong. Birth rates plunged in countries like China and Korea long before the pet boom. In America, pet ownership is linked to having children (not a surprise to anyone who has been on the receiving end of a multi-year lobbying campaign to get one). And the things that pet parents claim to get from their furry charges, such as love, companionship and understanding, sound less like the things we expect from children and more what we want from a spouse or lover.
Still, pets are undoubtedly treated better than they were. Mr Romano of Nestle say that Latin American ones used to subsist largely on table scraps, but no longer. Across the continent, he says, dogs now get about 40% of their calories from pet food, whereas cats get a little more. And pet owners are buying posher nibbles. Euromonitor estimates that dog-food sales in Mexico have grown by 25% in real terms since 2013. Premium therapeutic foods, which are supposedly good for dogs and are definitely heavy on wallets, are selling especially well.
Musti ja Mirri’s shop in Tamnisto, a suburb of Helsinki, suggests how far this process can run. The shop not only sells a huge range of prepared pet foods, including ice cream for dogs, grain-free foods and foods for moggies with a wide variety of conditions including old age, urinary problems and “sensitive digestions”. It also has two large freezers of fresh meat. The assistants say that a growing number of dog owners can order food tailored to their pets’ specific requirements, from outfits like Tails.com in Britain and Feed My Furbaby in New Zealand.
It is unclear that pets are benefiting from the extra attention to their diets. Julie Churchill, a veterinary nutritionist at the University of Minnesota, says that some specialist pet foods are useful. Animals with diabetes need special diets, as do extremely large dogs. But the rapid growth of natural, unprocessed pet food strikes her as an example of people extrapolating from their own dietary concerns. Unlike its human equivalent, pet food is processed with the aim of creating a more balanced diet. As for grain-free food (another human fad that has transferred to pets), Ms Churchill suspects it could be linked to a kind of heart disease.
Pet hates
A still trickier question is whether pets are good for people. John Bradshaw, the author of “The Animals Among Us”, argues that pets seem to calm people down and help them create bonds with other people, though. Anecdotal evidence that some people are disposed to adore pets, whereas others fear or loath them, has been borne out by studies. Statistical research on Swedish twins by Tove Fall of Uppsala University and others suggests that half of the propensity to own dogs is heritable.
Pet-pushers have spent years trying to prove that animals improve human health, and have large failed. The problem is the selection effect. Showing, as some studies have done, that dog owners get out more and visit the doctor less does not show that dogs are good for you. It could be that comparatively sociable, healthy people are more likely to acquire dogs.Certainly, pet owners are wealthier than average and more likely to own their homes. A study of California that tried to correct for social and economic influences concluded that having a pet is not associated with better general health (it is, however, correlated with having asthma). A recent randomised controlled trial of therapy dogs in juvenile cancer wards found almost no effect on children’s levels of stress or quality of life.
Undoubtedly, however, one species of animal helps one kind of human. A decade ago researchers positioned a 20-year-old man in a park in Paris and had him repeat the same chat-up line to 240 young women. When the man lacked a dog, he obtained 9% of the women’s phone numbers. While holding a dog on a lead, however, his success rate rose to 28%. A more recent survey of users of Match.com, a dating website, confirms that many women are attracted to men with dogs. Fewer are attracted to men with cats, possibly because owning a cat is less convincing proof of domestic competence. (Men seem to mind less either way.) If there is a pet-loving gene, its prospects seem excellent.
A still trickier question is whether pets are good for people. John Bradshaw, the author of “The Animals Among Us”, argues that pets seem to calm people down and help them create bonds with other people, though. Anecdotal evidence that some people are disposed to adore pets, whereas others fear or loath them, has been borne out by studies. Statistical research on Swedish twins by Tove Fall of Uppsala University and others suggests that half of the propensity to own dogs is heritable.
Pet-pushers have spent years trying to prove that animals improve human health, and have large failed. The problem is the selection effect. Showing, as some studies have done, that dog owners get out more and visit the doctor less does not show that dogs are good for you. It could be that comparatively sociable, healthy people are more likely to acquire dogs.Certainly, pet owners are wealthier than average and more likely to own their homes. A study of California that tried to correct for social and economic influences concluded that having a pet is not associated with better general health (it is, however, correlated with having asthma). A recent randomised controlled trial of therapy dogs in juvenile cancer wards found almost no effect on children’s levels of stress or quality of life.
Undoubtedly, however, one species of animal helps one kind of human. A decade ago researchers positioned a 20-year-old man in a park in Paris and had him repeat the same chat-up line to 240 young women. When the man lacked a dog, he obtained 9% of the women’s phone numbers. While holding a dog on a lead, however, his success rate rose to 28%. A more recent survey of users of Match.com, a dating website, confirms that many women are attracted to men with dogs. Fewer are attracted to men with cats, possibly because owning a cat is less convincing proof of domestic competence. (Men seem to mind less either way.) If there is a pet-loving gene, its prospects seem excellent.
