Pet culture refers to the culture revolving around the interaction of humans and

pets A pet, or companion animal, is an animal kept primarily for a person's company or entertainment rather than as a working animal, livestock, or a laboratory animal. Popular pets are often considered to have attractive/ cute appearances, int ...

Pet culture in the United States

Modern-day Western society has integrated animals into everyday life. Today, American families increasingly include indoor, non-working companion animals under the "family" umbrella. Pets are often posted in photos and videos on owners' social media, with the relationship between sharing and watching generating increased interest in pet ownership. This increase has impacted cat and dog populations within broader society, especially from the mid-1960s onward in America. An average of 63% of American households have one pet, while 45% have multiple. The increased prevalence of pets has yielded greater demand on the American

veterinarian A veterinarian (vet) or veterinary surgeon is a medical professional who practices veterinary medicine. They manage a wide range of health conditions and injuries in non-human animals. Along with this, veterinarians also play a role in animal r ...

supply. Before the 1900s, pet ownership was restricted to upper social classes with the income to care for them. With modern-day technology and medicine, the average lifespan of pets has lengthened. Indoor cats, on average, live 13–14 years. Indoor dogs, on average, live 6–10 years. Pet-keeping can be cost-heavy. Throughout the life of an average pet in the United States, the owner may spend between $8,000 and $13,000. Pets may be kept for companionship or

working animal A working animal is an animal, usually domesticated, that is kept by humans and trained to perform tasks. Some are used for their physical strength (e.g. oxen and draft horses) or for transportation (e.g. riding horses and camels), while oth ...

s, among other reasons.

Pets in the workplace

Pets have also gained more popularity in places of

employment Employment is a relationship between two party (law), parties Regulation, regulating the provision of paid Labour (human activity), labour services. Usually based on a employment contract, contract, one party, the employer, which might be a cor ...

. Office pets are animals that live in or visit the

workplace A workplace is a location where someone works, for their employer or themselves, a place of employment. Such a place can range from a home office to a large office building or factory. For industrialized societies, the workplace is one of the ...

. Usually office pets belong to the company but may also be the personal pet of the CEO or owner, office manager, or another employee. In addition to office pets, there are also Pet-friendly work environments, where employees can bring their pets from home to work with them. The practice of having office pets and/or pet-friendly work environments has been known to occur in

big business Big business involves large-scale corporate-controlled financial or business activities. As a term, it describes activities that run from "huge transactions" to the more general "doing big things". In corporate jargon, the concept is commonly ...

es, medium-sized businesses, and

small business Small businesses are types of corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships which have a small number of employees and/or less annual revenue than a regular-sized business or corporation. Businesses are defined as "small" in terms of being ...

es. Reasons as to why a business would have an office pet include boosting employee morale, reducing stress and improving health, drawing in and recruiting new employees, improving communication and collaboration between coworkers, attracting customers and clients, and improving public relations between the business and the community. Additionally, business leaders have cited multiple advantages to having pet-friendly work environments such as improving company culture, boosting productivity, reducing employee turnover, boosting employer brand, improving employee satisfaction, boosting the mental and physical health of workers and giving employees more flexibility.

Popular pets in the United States

Dogs

In the United States, the estimate of households that have

dog The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the gray wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it was selectively bred from a population of wolves during the Late Pleistocene by hunter-gatherers. ...

s as pet is about 69 million. Nowadays, owners that have dogs have considered them their best friend and a part of their family. Owners that have suffered from

mental illness A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is ...

loneliness Loneliness is an unpleasant emotional response to perceived or actual isolation. Loneliness is also described as social paina psychological mechanism that motivates individuals to seek social connections. It is often associated with a perc ...

, and distress have lightly eased with the help of their dogs. Human and dog relationships have now been more emotional than practical. In the past, humans owned dogs for work purpose. Small dogs were used to scare off pest, while larger dogs were used for protection and identify danger. Other important jobs that people have used dogs to perform include, among other things,

hunting Hunting is the Human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, and killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to obtain the animal's body for meat and useful animal products (fur/hide (sk ...

for

game A game is a structured type of play usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or video games) or art ...

search and rescue Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search ...

for missing persons,

herding Herding is the act of bringing individual animals together into a group (herd), maintaining the group, and moving the group from place to place—or any combination of those. Herding can refer either to the process of animals forming herds in ...

livestock Livestock are the Domestication, domesticated animals that are raised in an Agriculture, agricultural setting to provide labour and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, Egg as food, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The t ...

and serving as

therapy dog A therapy dog is a dog that is trained to provide affection, comfort and support to people, often in settings such as hospitals, retirement homes, nursing homes, schools, libraries, hospices, or disaster areas. In contrast to assistance dogs, ...

s for people.

Cats

In the United States, there is an estimate of 45.3 million households that own a

cat The cat (''Felis catus''), also referred to as the domestic cat or house cat, is a small domesticated carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species of the family Felidae. Advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the ...

. In the past, humans owned cats for work purposes. The most common job for cats is killing or scaring off

vermin Vermin (colloquially varmint(s) or varmit(s)) are pests or nuisance animals that spread diseases and destroy crops, livestock, and property. Since the term is defined in relation to human activities, which species are included vary by regi ...

such as

pigeon Columbidae is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with small heads, relatively short necks and slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. ...

s and

rodent Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the Order (biology), order Rodentia ( ), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and Mandible, lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal specie ...

s. Additionally, cats (particularly

puppy cat Dog-like cat (also canine-like cat, puppy cat, puppy-like cat, and so on) is a term in popular culture that refers to specific breeds of domestic cats that have unusual behavioral tendencies that are reminiscent of young domestic dogs. These a ...

s) have also been used as protection animals for their owners. Another job cats have been known to perform for humans is serving as therapy cats for people. Between cats and dogs, cats have been known to be the opposite of how dogs act. Cats are seen to be more independent and tend to themselves. Many believe that cats are only with humans for their own benefits, such as eating. Nowadays, this idea has changed as cats are known to change their performance based on how their owners act towards them. The type of cat, character, and its history impacts their behavior.

Rodents

In the United States, there is an estimate of 5.3 million households that have

rodents Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia ( ), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are n ...

as pets. Additionally, rats have also been used for work purpose as well such as bomb detection, laying computer link cables or serving as therapy animals for people. In the past, rodents were considered vermin that spread disease and were a threat to crops, as a result the practice of keeping small mammals as pets, is a relatively recent development, arising only after large-scale industrialization.

Birds

In the United States, there is an estimate of 6.0 million households that own

birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

. As with other domestic animals, birds have been used to perform roles and tasks such as delivering messages,

pigeon racing Pigeon racing is the sport of releasing specialized, trained homing pigeons, which then return to their homes over a carefully measured distance. The time it takes the animal to cover the specified distance is measured and the bird's rate of t ...

falconry Falconry is the hunting of wild animals in their natural state and habitat by means of a trained bird of prey. Small animals are hunted; squirrels and rabbits often fall prey to these birds. Two traditional terms are used to describe a person ...

. Usually, ownership of birds requires an enclosure (such as a

birdcage A birdcage (or bird cage) is a cage (enclosure), cage designed to house birds as pets. Antique (or antique-style) birdcages are often popular as collectors' items or as household decor but most are not suitable for housing live birds, being to ...

s) or a tether (such as a

jess Jess is a unisex given name, often a short form (hypocorism) of Jessica, Jesse, Jessie, Jessy, Jesswin and a surname. It may refer to: Given name * Jess Atkinson (born 1961), American football player * Jess Cain (1926–2008), American radi ...

) to keep the birds from getting loose.

Fishes

An aquarium with exotic fish breeds in Ghana

In the United States, an estimate of 11.8 million households who own a pet, own a

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

. Humans that rent homes that cannot own dogs and/or cats look towards the option of owning a fish. This could also be true to those who have a serious health issue or extreme asthma. Owning a fish has little evidence of allergies, and overall extremely little danger compared to owning dogs or cats. There are bacterial risks, such as infection, when it comes to fish water, but can be prevented with proper cleaning care. Those that do own a fish with an aquarium believe it has beneficial properties, such as relaxation and a distraction from everyday life.

Social cost of pet owning

Pet owning in America may cause trouble to the public. Owners may have to face the consequences of pets that misbehave. It may result in pressure and distress to their owners and nearby neighbors. Each year in the United States alone, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found that an average of 4.5 million people are attacked by a dog. Within those attacks, around 900,000 of them are serious and need immediate attention. Many pets are also known to carry diseases. Dogs, one of the most common pets in America, are known to transmit

rabies Rabies is a viral disease that causes encephalitis in humans and other mammals. It was historically referred to as hydrophobia ("fear of water") because its victims panic when offered liquids to drink. Early symptoms can include fever and abn ...

to humans primarily through biting. Cats are carriers of

Toxoplasma gondii ''Toxoplasma gondii'' () is a species of parasitic alveolate that causes toxoplasmosis. Found worldwide, ''T. gondii'' is capable of infecting virtually all warm-blooded animals, but members of the cat family (felidae) are the only known d ...

, a parasite that enters the brain and may cause

toxoplasmosis Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic disease caused by ''Toxoplasma gondii'', an apicomplexan. Infections with toxoplasmosis are associated with a variety of neuropsychiatric and behavioral conditions. Occasionally, people may have a few weeks or month ...

. Pets are also known to cause people allergies. They could also trigger an

asthma attack Asthma is a common chronic (medicine), long-term inflammation, inflammatory disease of the bronchiole, airways of the lungs. It is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible Airway obstruction, airflow obstruction, and easi ...

, for those who are allergic.

References

{{reflist Pets Culture