Pets are a $45 billion business -- and, one Smith professor believes, fertile ground for scientific research
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NORTHAMPTON - They reside in more than half of American homes and fuel a $45 billion a year industry, but little scientific study has been dedicated to this common housemate.
Smith College students are stepping in to fill the void.
This semester, Smith is offering an anthropology colloquium on pets, with a focus on the most popular furry members of the family: dogs.
"They're a huge part of our culture," said anthropology professor Donald Joralemon, who teaches the twice-weekly, four-credit course, Colloquium in Anthropology: Pets. Joralemon has taught the colloquium before, but this is the first time he has used pets as its focus.
He believes there is fertile ground to do so. Joralemon estimates between two-thirds and three-quarters of American homes include pets. "Maybe for that reason we take them for granted, and it's not seen as a scientific area of research."
Studying pets falls under anthrozoology - a more recent field that is a combination of anthropology and zoology. Anthrozoology examines the relationship between people and animals. Joralemon has plenty of experience with that: he's a member of the Pioneer Valley Kennel Club and the owner of three English springer spaniels, a cat and six horses.
He decided the class should focus on pets to pique student interest and give his students a relatable context in which to practice research methods.
"I didn't want to study humans relating to cows," Joralemon said Tuesday from his Prospect Street office, a room with a fireplace, books covering an entire wall, and, on his laptop, a picture of Silkie- one of his dogs - standing on a lake dock at sunset. "I wanted students to have a chance to think about those animals that we invite into our homes to forge close relationships with them."
And there's more to Fido (or in Joralemon's case, Silkie) than fetch and feeding. As pets have risen to the level of family member, their influence on society and the economy has grown.
In 2009, Americans spent $45.5 billion (a little more than the Cuban government's operating budget) on the nation's estimated 411 million pets, according to American Pet Products Association, an industry group that has conducted annual surveys of pet owners since 1998. In addition to staples like pet food, vet visits, and grooming, Americans laid out billions of dollars for yoga classes, designer shampoo, and monogrammed pet sweaters, among other luxury items.
Even more telling than the money spent on them is the prominent role pets play in the lives of humans. They have been touted as extending their owners' longevity. They're the rallying cry of animal rights groups including the Humane Society and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). In short, there's plenty for students to dig into. And Smith students are digging in.
"I was really surprised how little studied the field of pets is, seeing as they are so prominent in our culture," said Kristen L. Connor, one of the two dozen students taking Joralemon's class this term. She describes herself as "definitely not a pet person," but said the class has caused her to re-evaluate the role of pets in people's lives.
"The health benefits, the mental health benefits - pets, especially dogs, have been shown to help people with autism," said Connor. She noted that service dogs paired with autistic children have been shown to work wonders. Dogs also have been shown to reduce stress and help autistic people socialize with family and friends. Connor is weighing whether to do her final class project on how robotic animals, such as Zhu Zhu toy hamsters, can be used for therapeutic purposes.
"There are so many relationships between pets and people," Connor said.
A bit of history thrown in
Keeping animals as pets dates back to prehistoric times, said Joralemon, who includes a history of pets in his class. Evidence of people living with wolves, or perhaps dogs, can be found in European caves, where wall paintings that depict canine-like figures have been found. Scientists have also unearthed wolf and human bones from similar caves. In Egypt, ancient societies forged ornate collars for dogs and cats.
Pets' place in society has changed since then. It oscillates between providing useful services and being displayed as a status symbol.
Scholars, Joralemon said, theorize that people began grooming wolves as pets to share hunting responsibilities. The relationship was symbiotic: wolves were given table scraps in exchange for flushing prey for hunters. Over time this relationship changed, and through selective breeding dogs became genetically distinct from wolves. Between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago a less aggressive canine breed split from the wolf pack and became the dog.
"Some of that is temperament," Joralemon said, "but over time they were bred to have favorable traits: bigger eyes, a softer face. Some scholars say they were bred to look more like babies."
Dogs were bred for a variety of purposes: flushing, protection, hunting, ferreting, company, and aesthetics. Joralemon, for one, breeds English springer spaniels. So far he's facilitated four litters.
But in America, dogs as family pets (and increasingly as family members) did not become common until the 20th century. It happened largely due to the rise of the middle class, Joralemon noted. The industrial revolution enhanced the economic standing of middle America, giving most people the means to care for pets. Industrialization also reduced the workload for pets, changing their role from mousers and hunters to companion.
"It certainly occurred earlier for the upper classes," Joralemon said of people keeping pets. "It occurs more widely for the middle class to treat dogs as members of the family in the 20th century, it's a bit of a cultural phenomenon."
Joralemon's class was quick to become popular with students. In addition to the 22 students enrolled in the class, Joralemon said he had almost 60 more requests from students asking him to add them to the roster.
Margaret K. Harpin, a sophomore in Joralemon's class, said the course will likely change the way she interacts with her own pets: three dogs and a horse. Before taking the class, Harpin said she was apt to talk with her animals as if they were people - anthropomorphize them a little, giving them talkative personalities like a cartoon Garfield or Snoopy. Now, she said she will seek to interact with them more on their own level.
"I'm still probably going to give my dogs a voice and talk to my horse like he has emotions like I do, but I think I'll be a little more aware that that's not the case," Harpin said. "I'll try not to make them more human."
While Joralemon decided to study pets, the course, a prerequisite for anthropology majors, could have been on a variety of topics. The goal of the class is to teach students the basics of anthropological research: to identify a research topic and analyze it incorporating participant observations, using qualitative methods and applying cultural relativism. Joralemon said he chose pets to make the class more fun and easier for students to relate.
"I'm a medical anthropologist, I work on the study of organ transplantation," he said. "I couldn't imagine how students would link to that."
