A life shared with pets brings many emotions. We feel love for our companions, certainly, and happiness at the thought that we’re providing them with a safe, healthy life. But there’s another emotion, less often acknowledged, that can be nearly as powerful: guilt. When we see our cats gazing wistfully out the window, or watch a goldfish swim lazy circles in a bowl, we can’t help but wonder: are we doing the right thing, keeping these independent beings locked up, subject to our control? Is keeping pets actually good for the pets themselves? That’s the question that animates Jessica Pierce’s powerful Run, Spot, Run. A lover of pets herself (including, over the years, dogs, cats, fish, rats, hermit crabs, and more), Pierce understands the joys that pets bring us. But she also refuses to deny the ambiguous ethics at the heart of the relationship, and through a mix of personal stories, philosophical reflections, and scientifically informed analyses of animal behavior and natural history, she puts pet-keeping to the test. Is it ethical to keep pets at all? Are some species more suited to the relationship than others? Are there species one should never attempt to own? And are there ways that we can improve our pets’ lives, so that we can be confident that we are giving them as much as they give us? Deeply empathetic, yet rigorous and unflinching in her thinking, Pierce has written a book that is sure to help any pet owner, unsettling assumptions but also giving them the knowledge to build deeper, better relationships with the animals with whom they’ve chosen to share their lives.
Human–Animal Interaction and Human Prosociality: A Meta-Analytic Review of Experimental and Correlational Studies
Pet ownership and interactions with animals confer various physiological and psychological benefits to humans. Although interactions with animals are commonplace, there is no consensus in the liter...
Humans Love Having Pets. Seems Like Some Other Primates Do, Too.
We aren’t the only animals that like to take care of other species. A new study finds that the roots of keeping a pet may stretch deep into our primate past.
The Indian street dog crisis and multispecies coexistence in tropical urban futures
Cities in the Global South struggle with human–animal coexistence conundrums. For example, in South Asia, old and new collide: people raise livestock informally and feed free-ranging animals within heterogeneously developed, juxtaposed patches, while digital economies boom amid threats from waste piles linked with zoonotic diseases and conflicts. This is exemplified by the free-ranging dog crises in India. Humanity’s oldest companion now suffers between compassion and rising conflicts. Dogs still scavenge, guard, breed, disperse and die on streets shaped by traffic, garbage, ritual feeding and uneven care. Indian courts, attempting to address the problems, have overlooked the root cause—food subsidies. Sterilization, shelters, fencing or removals cannot succeed when urban landscapes provide food subsidies to animals without corresponding responsibility. Episodes of reactive management must yield to urban planning, acknowledging that multispecies communities in shared living spaces are complex and interconnected. Here, I suggest making compassion accountable to public health, animal well-being and urban ecology.
How to spot a psychopath: ‘It’s like the difference between a domestic cat and a wild cat’
People with persistent predatory personalities cause an inordinate amount of pain. Recently, our shared understanding of them has grown – and it could help protect us
There's no place like home
Peace of mind for pet parents and unique stays for sitters
PETSCOP: The Darkest Game You Cannot Play
Project Proposal - Social-PETs.EU | Notion
🇪🇺 EU Horizon Call: Privacy Enhancing Technologies
Why aren’t coyotes, dingoes and wolves treated like our dogs? | Aeon Essays
Coyotes, dingoes and wolves are all dogs, as intelligent and loyal as our familiars. Our treatment of them is unconscionable
Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution
From Mutual Aid In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood, of course, in its wide Darwinian sense — not as a struggle for the sheer means of existence, but as a … Continued
Heterospecific social behavior in primates: insights into the evolutionary roots of pet-keeping
Primate interspecific interactions with both other primates and non-primate species range from predator–prey dynamics to affiliative behaviors such as grooming, play, and carrying. While many primates participate in interspecific associations or commensal relationships, to our knowledge interspecific social interactions have never been systematically synthesized. Here, we present the first comprehensive review of such interactions, compiling 427 cases from the literature, media sources, and a global survey of primatologists. These involved 88 primate species and 127 non-primate species (including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, malacostracans, and insects) across wild (n = 311) and captive (n = 111) contexts. The most frequent interactions occurred within or between primate families (e.g., Cercopithecidae–Cercopithecidae, Cebidae–Atelidae), though affiliative behaviors were also directed toward distantly related taxa such as dogs and birds. Play (n = 139) and grooming (n = 136) were most common. Juveniles and infants predominantly engaged in play, while adult females were more likely to groom. Adult males were less affiliative overall. Contrary to expectations, affiliative behaviors were not more often directed toward immature than adult heterospecifics. Primates were the initiators in most interactions. These findings offer new insights into the diversity and contexts of heterospecific sociality in primates and suggest that some behavioral tendencies relevant to later forms of human–animal companionship – such as caregiving, tolerance, and exploratory play – may be more widespread among primates than previously recognized.
Sovereign Accountable Commons
In the MetaCurrency Project, we’re committed to practicing what we preach, or eating our own dog food, if you prefer that way of saying it…
AI Slop Is Ruining Cute Animals on the Internet
Pet owners, rescue agencies, and wildlife groups are calling for new safeguards as AI makes it harder to tell whether animals, from polar bears to house cats, are real or fake.
ATBuddy
Hatch, pet, and feed your buddy. Neglect it and it dies. A decentralized virtual pet living in your AT Protocol identity.
Pugs are anatomical disasters. Vets must speak out – even if it’s bad for business | Anonymous
Owners must be told some breeds are born to a lifetime of suffering, even if it means upsetting clients and putting livelihoods on the line
