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People love their pet . Around60 % of the U.S. populationowns at least one deary and collectively spendsmore than $ 100 billionon them every class .
But do any other animals have that kind of drive to worry for a member of another species ? Do any nonhuman animals keep ducky ?
Koko the gorilla with her gray tabby cat, named All Ball. It’s unclear if connections between animals like Koko and All Ball are similar to a parent adopting a child or an individual adopting a pet.
You ’ve belike go through plenty of examples of animals " adopt " other animals . Koko the Gorilla gorilla and her " pet " kittenis probably the most famous case , but there ’s alsoan elephant that befriended a blackguard , a crow that adopted a cat , a goose that copulate up with a tortoise , and many more . These examples intimate that animals can and do keep dearie — does n’t it ?
" The problem is that , with very , very few exceptions , all of these occur in the linguistic context of human intercession , " saidHarold Herzog , a professor emeritus at Western Carolina University in North Carolina . " That is to say , they happen in wildlife parks , or they occur in the great unwashed ’s rest home , or they occur in laboratories where masses are doing experiments to look at beast becoming bond . There are incredibly few examples of these variety of relationship forming in the wild . "
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Koko the gorilla with her gray tabby cat, named All Ball. It’s unclear if connections between animals like Koko and All Ball are similar to a parent adopting a child or an individual adopting a pet.
In all of the scientific lit , Herzog said , there are five or fewer grounds - backed crabby - species relationships that form in the wilderness :
And , perchance :
In these cases , it ’s unclear what these connections are — for instance , if a parent is adopting a child or if one coinage is adopting a pet . Scientists broadly consider them all the same matter : cross - species — or cross - genus — espousal . But with all of the minute of observance scientists have done , to have only a handful of examples suggests that best-loved adoption in the wild is unbelievably rare .
After the gray cat got hit by a car and died, Koko got a new tiger-striped Manx cat. She signed “baby” when she first met and cradled the cat, according to The Gorilla Foundation.
" I argue that homo are the only animal that keep pets , and these rare exceptions sort of prove me right , " Herzog said .
To understand why we might be alone in our pet - proceed habits , it ’s good to translate why we keep pets in the first billet . There are four main theories for why human race keep PET , consort toBeth Daly , an associate prof of anthrozoology at the University of Windsor in Canada .
One is that it may signal to others that you ’re salutary mate material , since you ’re capable of taking care of something . " A lot of people say , if you want to meet somebody , you get a pup and go sit in a ballpark , " Daly said .
Another related theory is that we use animals to check how to take care of our own babies .
Pet - keeping may also come down to aloneness — people are becoming more isolated and shelve get child , and pets can fill that role for us .
lastly , it may be that pets are just a positive presence in our lives — but neither Herzog nor Daly grease one’s palms that idea .
" There ’s certainly a lot of people who think favourite are dependable for us , but they ’re only good for us if they ’re not a problem , " Daly said . " I mean , I take the air with crutch because I was paralyzed when I fell off my sawbuck . That ’s not a practiced pet , but he was doing what horse do . "
" Once you take forth the socioeconomic and other variables , the vast legal age of studies have shown no difference between favorite owners and non - possessor , or that preferred owners are worse off , " Herzog read . In an informal tally of 46 study on depression in pet versus non - pet owner , Herzog found that 30 , or close to two - thirds of the papers found no difference in economic crisis measure between the two groups .
None of these theories about why we keep PET are unequalled to humans ; many animals need to take care of babies and can benefit from company . Herzog argues that the one thing that does make us different is our cognitive abilities .
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" The reason why they [ pets ] spread so rapidly in humans is that we do have the capacity to fall in love with them . And the other matter we have that probably most other animals do n’t is … this sense of recognizing that these are other creatures that have minds , " Herzog say .
Human culturealso plays a purpose . There ’s a reason that French English bulldog seem to be everywhere these day , when 10 year ago , everyone had Labrador retrievers . " Pets are contagious , " Herzog said ; nonhuman animate being " do n’t have that level of mental contagion . "
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