ABSTRACT
In a globalizing world, the culture of pets is increasing worldwide, particularly in the emerging economies. Pets receive special attention intended to promote their well-being, at least as people understand that condition. The historian Keith Thomas provided a helpfully sharp working definition: pets were animals that were allowed into the house; they were given individual names; and they were never eaten. Animals buried alongside people, in arrangements that indicate special bonds, can be put forward as particularly powerful evidence for the existence of "pets". Even when only nonhuman animals are invoked, the difference between an individual domesticated animal, such as a lamb reared by hand, and the domestic pets with which we are more familiar, is striking. Ingrid Tague documents the angry concomitant of a rise in the ownership of pets, which is the vicious condemnation of these animals and their owners, often taking the form of the most blatant misogyny.
