But in addition to providing some clean summer fun, the movie offers an opportunity for serious reflection upon this most bizarre human cultural ritual. The popularity of keeping pets is at an all-time high, and the number of pet animals living in our homes has mushroomed over the past four decades such that pets now outnumber people.Īnd some reflection is in order, since the wellbeing of millions of animals is at stake. The pet industry eagerly fuels this hobby and rakes in billions of dollars each year on the sale of pet animals and their paraphernalia. What does the secret life of pets look like from the animals’ point of view?Ī YouTube video called “What my dog does when I leave” has several million views, probably because it taps into a curiosity and concern many of us share. A man straps a GoPro to his dog to capture what a day for him is like on his own. You can almost feel the dog’s desperation as his owner shuts the door. The dog howls, he runs around the house, looking into every crevice to see if his human might be there. What I find most striking about the video is that the dog doesn’t sleep. He is anxiously alert all day, ears pricked for the slightest sound. GoPro videos notwithstanding, our animals’ lives when we leave them home are mostly invisible to us. Looking at several objective measures, however, we can surmise that the secret lives of our pets are often boring, frustrating and lonely. At least 40% of dogs in US homes are thought to suffer from anxiety, and these are just the cases that have been identified by veterinarians. Since at least a quarter of all dogs and a third of all cats never see a veterinarian during their lifetime, pathological levels of anxiety are probably much higher than reported.Įmotional suffering often manifests in “behavioral problems” which are promptly blamed on the pets themselves. Many are housebound, and spend much of each day alone with nothing to do.īut the roots of these problems are almost certainly to be found in the living conditions of our pets.
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