ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses specifically on animals as pets in contrast to animals considered in other ways, treated earlier in this section. Domestication of animals progressed to animals being kept solely for their value as companions. Only very recently has an effort been made to summarize the cross-cultural presence of pets. Formerly the privilege of the rich in mostly European settings, pets, especially dogs, now accompany the rapid reconfiguration of Chinese society into a heavily urbanized one. Gray and Young also note many anthropologically interesting pet sidelights such as human breastfeeding of dogs and the relation of dogs and cats to the spirit world. The question of the emotional connection between pets and humans might be introduced in context with the question of eating cats and dogs, considered by Gray and Young and also by Podberscek.
