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    The emotional lives of companion animals : attachment and subjective claims by owners of cats and dogs

    Martens, P.; Enders-Slegers, M-J.; Walker, Jessica

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    Date
    2016-03-08
    Citation:
    Martens, P., Enders-Slegers, M-J., & Walker, J. (2016). The Emotional Lives of Companion Animals: Attachment and Subjective Claims by Owners of Cats and Dogs. Anthrozoos, 29 (1), pp.73-88. doi:10.1080/08927936.2015.1075299
    Permanent link to Research Bank record:
    https://hdl.handle.net/10652/4118
    Abstract
    There is a growing body of scientific evidence supporting the existence of emotions in nonhuman animals. Companion-animal owners show a strong connection and attachment to their animals and readily assign emotions to them. In this paper we present information on how the attachment level of companion-animal owners correlates with their attribution of emotions to their companion cat or dog and their attribution of mirrored emotions. The results of an online questionnaire, completed by 1,023 Dutch-speaking cat and/or dog owners (mainly in the Netherlands and Belgium), suggest that owners attribute several emotions to their pets. Respondents attributed all posited basic (anger, joy [happiness], fear, surprise, disgust, and sadness) and complex (shame, jealousy, disappointment, and compassion) emotions to their companion animals, with a general trend toward basic emotions (with the exception of sadness) being more commonly attributed than complex emotions. All pet owners showed strong attachment to their companion animal(s), with the degree of attachment (of both cat and dog owners) varying significantly with education level and gender. Owners who ascribed human characteristics to their dog or cat also scored higher on the Pet Bonding Scale (PBS). Finally, owners who found it pleasant to pet their dog or cat had a higher average PBS score than those who did not like to do so. The relationship between owners’ attributions of mirrored emotions and the degree of attachment to dogs was significant for all emotions, whilst for cats this relationship was significant only for joy, sadness, surprise, shame, disappointment, and compassion.
    Keywords:
    attachment, cats (Felis catus), companion animals, dogs (Canis familiaris), emotions
    ANZSRC Field of Research:
    060801 Animal Behaviour
    Copyright Holder:
    Authors

    Copyright Notice:
    © 2016 The Author(s) This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
    Rights:
    This digital work is protected by copyright. It may be consulted by you, provided you comply with the provisions of the Act and the following conditions of use. These documents or images may be used for research or private study purposes. Whether they can be used for any other purpose depends upon the Copyright Notice above. You will recognise the author's and publishers rights and give due acknowledgement where appropriate.
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    • Natural Sciences Journal Articles [148]

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