Biology, Culture, and the Origins of Pet-Keeping

• Main Author: Harold A. Herzog
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Animal Behavior and Cognition 2014-08-01
• Series: Animal Behavior and Cognition
• Subjects: Pet-keeping; Cultural transmission; Cultural evolution; Interspecies attachment; Adaptationism; Biophilia; Cross-species adoption
• Online Access: http://www.animalbehaviorandcognition.org/uploads/journals/3/06.Herzog_FINAL.pdf

Attachments between non-human animals of different species are surprisingly common in situations involving human agency (e.g., homes, zoos, and wildlife parks). However, cross-species animal friendships analogous to pet-keeping by humans are at least rare and possibly non-existent in nature. Why has pet-keeping evolved only in Homo sapiens? I review theories that explain pet-keeping either as an adaptation or an evolutionary by-product. I suggest that these explanations cannot account for the wide variation in the distribution and forms of pet-keeping across human societies and over historical time. Using fluctuations in the popularity of dog breeds in the United States, I show how shifts in choices of pets follow the rapid changes in preferences that characterize fashion cycles. I argue that while humans possess some innate traits that facilitate attachment to members of other species (e.g., parental urges, attraction to creatures with infantile features), pet-keeping is largely a product of social learning and imitation-based cultural evolution.