A pet, or companion animal, is an animal kept primarily for a person's company or entertainment rather than as a working animal, livestock, or a laboratory animal. Popular pets are often considered to have attractive/cute appearances, intelligence, and relatable personalities, but some pets may be taken in on an altruistic basis and accepted by the owner regardless of these characteristics.
Commensalism is a long-term biological interaction (symbiosis) in which members of one species gain benefits while those of the other species neither benefit nor are harmed. This is in contrast with mutualism, in which both organisms benefit from each other; amensalism, where one is harmed while the other is unaffected; and parasitism, where one is harmed and the other benefits.
Dog training is a kind of animal training, the application of behavior analysis which uses the environmental events of antecedents and consequences to modify the dog behavior, either for it to assist in specific activities or undertake particular tasks, or for it to participate effectively in contemporary domestic life. While training dogs for specific roles dates back to Roman times at least, the training of dogs to be compatible household pets developed with suburbanization in the 1950s.
Animal training is the act of teaching animals specific responses to specific conditions or stimuli. Training may be for purposes such as companionship, detection, protection, and entertainment. The type of training an animal receives will vary depending on the training method used, and the purpose for training the animal. For example, a seeing eye dog will be trained to achieve a different goal than a wild animal in a circus.
A semi-feral animal lives predominantly in a feral state but has some contact and experience with humans. This may be because it was born in a domesticated state and then reverted to life in wild conditions, or it may be an animal that grew up in essentially wild conditions but has developed a comfort level with humans through feeding, receiving medical care, or similar contacts.
Human bonding is the process of development of a close interpersonal relationship between two or more people. It most commonly takes place between family members or friends, but can also develop among groups, such as sporting teams and whenever people spend time together. Bonding is a mutual, interactive process, and is different from simple liking. It is the process of nurturing social connection.
The dog is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it was domesticated from an extinct population of wolves during the Late Pleistocene, over 14,000 years ago by hunter-gatherers, prior to the development of agriculture. The dog was the first species to be domesticated by humans. Experts estimate that due to their long association with humans, dogs have expanded to a large number of domestic individuals and gained the ability to thrive on a starch-rich diet that would be inadequate for other canids.
Emotion is defined as any mental experience with high intensity and high hedonic content. The existence and nature of emotions in non-human animals are believed to be correlated with those of humans and to have evolved from the same mechanisms. Charles Darwin was one of the first scientists to write about the subject, and his observational approach has since developed into a more robust, hypothesis-driven, scientific approach. Cognitive bias tests and learned helplessness models have shown feelings of optimism and pessimism in a wide range of species, including rats, dogs, cats, rhesus macaques, sheep, chicks, starlings, pigs, and honeybees. Jaak Panksepp played a large role in the study of animal emotion, basing his research on the neurological aspect. Mentioning seven core emotional feelings reflected through a variety of neuro-dynamic limbic emotional action systems, including seeking, fear, rage, lust, care, panic and play. Through brain stimulation and pharmacological challenges, such emotional responses can be effectively monitored.
Cats communicate for a variety of reasons, including to show happiness, express anger, solicit attention, and observe potential prey. Additionally, they collaborate, play, and share resources. When cats communicate with humans, they do so to get what they need or want, such as food, water, attention, or play. As such, cat communication methods have been significantly altered by domestication. Studies have shown that domestic cats tend to meow much more than feral cats. They rarely meow to communicate with fellow cats or other animals. Cats can socialize with each other and are known to form "social ladders," where a dominant cat is leading a few lesser cats. This is common in multi-cat households.
Growling is a low, guttural vocalization produced by animals as an aggressive warning but can also be found in other contexts such as playful behaviors or mating. Different animals will use growling in specific contexts as a form of communication. In humans, low or dull rumbling noises may also be emitted when they are discontent with something or they are angry, although this human sound is often termed "groaning" & "grunting".
Dog behavior is the internally coordinated responses of individuals or groups of domestic dogs to internal and external stimuli. It has been shaped by millennia of contact with humans and their lifestyles. As a result of this physical and social evolution, dogs have acquired the ability to understand and communicate with humans. Behavioral scientists have uncovered a wide range of social-cognitive abilities in domestic dogs.
Cat behavior encompasses the actions and reactions displayed by a cat in response to various stimuli and events. Cat behavior includes body language, elimination habits, aggression, play, communication, hunting, grooming, urine marking, and face rubbing. It varies among individuals, colonies, and breeds.
Socialization of animals is the process of training animals so that they can be kept in close relationship to humans.
A free-ranging dog is a dog that is not confined to a yard or house. Free-ranging dogs include street dogs, village dogs, stray dogs, feral dogs, etc., and may be owned or unowned. The global dog population is estimated to be 900 million, of which around 20% are regarded as owned pets and therefore restrained.
The human–canine bond is rooted in the domestication of the dog, which began occurring through their long-term association with hunter-gatherers more than 30,000–40,000 years ago. The earliest known relationship between dogs and humans is attested by the 1914 discovery of the Bonn–Oberkassel dog, who was buried alongside two humans in modern-day Oberkassel, Germany, approximately 15,000 years ago. For centuries, the phrase "man's best friend" has commonly been used to refer to dogs, as they were the first species and the only large carnivore to have been domesticated. This companionship is most evident in Western countries, such as the United States, where 44% of households were found to be keeping at least one dog as a pet.
An interspecies friendship is a nonsexual bond that is formed between animals of different species. Numerous cases of interspecies friendships among wild and domesticated animals have been reported and documented with photography and video. Domestication of animals has led to interspecies friendships between species that would never naturally exist together. In many cases of interspecies friendship, the species are not normally seen together, and sometimes, one is of a species that ordinarily preys on the other in nature.
Dog-like cat is a term in popular culture that refers to specific breeds of domestic cats that have unusual behavioral tendencies that are reminiscent of young domestic dogs. These are within the scope of feline behavior, and may be enhanced through selective breeding. These behaviors, not specific to any breed, include following people around from room to room, the desire to receive frequent moments of physical affection such as being held and petted, a lack of aggression toward some fellow animals, and a placid nature. Certain owners may successfully attempt to train their cats to perform on command, such as via clicker training, akin to canines and other domesticated animals.
Calming signals is a term conceived by Norwegian dog trainer and canine ethologist, Turid Rugaas, to describe the patterns of behavior used by dogs interacting with each other in environments that cause heightened stress and when conveying their desires or intentions. The term has been used interchangeably with "appeasement signals." Calming signals, or appeasement signals, are communicative cues used by dogs to de-escalate aggressive encounters or to prevent the development of aggressive encounters completely. Calming signals are performed by one dog and directed towards one or more individual(s), which could be dogs or individuals of other species, such as humans. When calming signals are ignored, a dog may display warning signals of aggression, and this has the potential to escalate to outright conflict between individuals.
Animal–computer interaction (ACI) is a field of research for the design and use of technology with, for and by animals covering different kinds of animals from wildlife, zoo and domesticated animals in different roles. It emerged from, and was heavily influenced by, the discipline of Human–computer interaction (HCI). As the field expanded, it has become increasingly multi-disciplinary, incorporating techniques and research from disciplines such as artificial intelligence (AI), requirements engineering (RE), and veterinary science.
Displaced aggression, also referred to as redirected aggression, occurs when an animal or human is fearful or agitated by external stimuli, a provocation, or perception, but is unable or unwilling to direct their aggression toward the stimulus. The aggressor may direct aggression toward whoever is nearest. The behavior is more common in cats than it is in dogs. In certain species of monkeys anger is redirected toward a relative or friend of an opponent. In cichlid fish, it may be used to manage conflict within the group. Displaced aggression is experienced by humans and animals.
