Pet

Other animals commonly kept include rabbits; ferrets; pigs; rodents such as gerbils, hamsters, chinchillas, rats, mice, and guinea pigs; birds such as parrots, passerines, and fowls; reptiles such as turtles, lizards, snakes, and iguanas; aquatic pets such as fish, freshwater snails, and saltwater snails; amphibians such as frogs and salamanders; and arthropod pets such as tarantulas and hermit crabs.

There is a medically approved class of therapy animals that are brought to visit confined humans, such as children in hospitals or elders in nursing homes.

Pet therapy utilizes trained animals and handlers to achieve specific physical, social, cognitive, or emotional goals with patients.

People most commonly get pets for companionship, to protect a home or property, or because of the perceived beauty or attractiveness of the animals.

Examples include philodendrons and Easter lilies, which can cause severe kidney damage to cats,[15][16] and poinsettias, begonia, and aloe vera, which are mildly toxic to dogs.

[17][18] For birds, chocolate can be deadly, and foods intended for human consumption, such as bread, crackers, and dairy items, can potentially cause health problems.

Overweight pets have been shown to be at a higher risk of developing diabetes, liver problems, joint pain, kidney failure, and cancer.

[24][26] Pets might have the ability to stimulate their caregivers, in particular the elderly, giving people someone to take care of, someone to exercise with, and someone to help them heal from a physically or psychologically troubled past.

[24][27][28] Animal company can also help people to preserve acceptable levels of happiness despite the presence of mood symptoms like anxiety or depression.

[24][40] People residing in a long-term care facility, such as a hospice or nursing home, may experience health benefits from pets.

[44] Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Leslie Irvine has focused her attention on pets of the homeless population.

[48][49][50][51] Since the year 2000, a small but increasing number of jurisdictions in North America have enacted laws redefining pet's owners as guardians.

The question of pets' legal status can arise with concern to purchase or adoption, custody, divorce, estate and inheritance, injury, damage, and veterinary malpractice.

The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy originally established its first positive list (positieflijst) per 1 February 2015 for a set of 100 mammals (including cats, dogs and production animals) deemed appropriate as pets on the recommendations of Wageningen University.

[57] Parliamentary debates about such a pet list date back to the 1980s, with continuous disagreements about which species should be included and how the law should be enforced.

[62][63] They produce about 30% ± 13%, by mass, as much feces as Americans, and through their diet, constitute about 25–30% of the environmental impacts from animal production in terms of the use of land, water, fossil fuel, phosphate, and biocides.

Dog and cat animal product consumption is responsible for the release of up to 64 ± 16 million tons CO2-equivalent methane and nitrous oxide, two powerful greenhouse gasses.

[63] While many people have kept many different species of animals in captivity over the course of human history, only a relative few have been kept long enough to be considered domesticated.

A domesticated animal is a species that has been made fit for a human environment,[64] by being consistently kept in captivity and selectively bred over a long enough period of time that it exhibits marked differences in behavior and appearance from its wild relatives.

Domestication contrasts with taming, which is simply when an un-domesticated, wild animal has become tolerant of human presence, and perhaps even enjoys it.

Large mammals that might be kept as pets include alpaca, camel, cattle, donkey, goat, horse, llama, pig, reindeer, sheep and yak.

Birds kept as pets include companion parrots like the budgie and cockatiel, fowl such as chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, and quail, columbines, and passerines, namely finches and canaries.

The term wild in this context specifically applies to any species of animal which has not undergone a fundamental change in behavior to facilitate a close co-existence with humans.

[68] In the Old Testament passage in 2 Samuel 12, the prophet Nathan, in order to indicate to King David the seriousness of his adulterous and murderous affair with Bathsheba, uses the parable of a poor man's pet lamb being slaughtered by a rich neighbor who uses it to feed a guest.

[69] As the popularity of pet-keeping in the modern sense rose during the Victorian era, animals became a fixture within urban culture as commodities and decorative objects.

Utilizing the affection that owners had for their pets, professional dog stealers would capture animals and hold them for ransom.

[82] It is debated whether this redirection of human nurturing behaviour towards non-human animals, in the form of pet-keeping, was maladaptive, due to being biologically costly, or whether it was positively selected for.

[86] Two other studies suggest that the behaviour constitutes an error, side effect or misapplication of the evolved mechanisms responsible for human empathy and theory of mind to cover non-human animals which has not sufficiently impacted its evolutionary advantage in the long run.

[87] By contrast, Ikechukwu Monday Osebor writing in the Aquino Journal from the University of Nigeria argues from a consequentialist perspective that pet ownership can be ethical.

[88] Gary Francione and Anna Charlton argue that pet breeding and ownership are unethical because they view it as treating animals as property and commodifying them.