City dwellers more apt to think of their pets as children than country folk

report from dogblog.dogster.com

Whether a pet is a family member or “just an animal” is highly dependent on where the pet lives, according to new research out of Indiana University.

David Blouin, the cultural sociologist behind the research, said he found that attitudes about dogs usually fell in one of three distinct categories: “Humanist, where dogs were highly valued and considered close companions, like pseudo people; protectionists might be vegetarians and they greatly valued animals in general, not just as pets; dominionists saw animals as separate and less important than people, often using the dogs for hunting and pest control and requiring them to live outdoors,” he described in a university press release.

Gotta love the “pseudo people” label!