Pets and Their People

An extraordinary mix of psychology, science, and cultural history exploring the relationship between humans and their pets.

Humans have been domesticating animals for over ten thousand years. Why do we want tame wolves in our homes, subdued wild cats on our laps, and snakes draped like scarves around our necks? This ongoing debate between the wild and the tame has informed human history, human psychology, human politics, and human sociology. At the same time, pets feature in art, poetry, and some of our most popular stories. Is it because we ourselves are wild and so we want furry, feathered, and scaly wildness in our lives? But on what terms? Have we tamed the wolves or are wolves wilding us?

Pets and their People looks at the strange rapport between humans and their pets--or pets and their humans--at each stage of our lives. Taking bearings from every era of human history, Charles Foster asks how the special bond between owners and their pets has evolved, and what that evolution tells us about our own changing identity. Do we look to animals as moral--or other--role models? Do pets help us to communicate? Do they teach us about life and death? And ultimately, do they reveal who we really are as humans?

Charles Foster is a fellow of Exeter College, University of Oxford. His previous books include Being a Beast, The Screaming Sky, and Cry of the Wild: Eight Animals Under Siege.