Many people watch TV with their dog on the couch beside them (we once had a friend whose dog would growl whenever the villain came on the show), so dog food companies have come up with the idea of making pet food commercials FOR pets (let’s just hope that dog food isn’t imported from China!)
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Scientists have found chemical flame retardants in the blood of pet dogs at concentrations five to 10 times higher than in humans, but lower than levels found in a previous study of cats. Chemicals are bad for PEOPLE too: A recent study found that higher levels of perfluorocarbons (PFCs) in the body are associated with increased odds of having experienced early menopause in women between 42 and 64 years old. Women in this age group with high levels of PFCs also had significantly lower concentrations of estrogen when compared to women who had low levels of PFCs. And plastic bottles are bad for MEN too: They lead to lower sperm counts.
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Man’s best friend might just be treated like any other animal, if his owners live in the suburbs. Sociologists have found that people who think of animals as children tend to have a city background. But no matter where someone lives, having children often changes the owners’ thoughts on their pets.
Researcher David Blouin says, “To think of pets as just another animal is not uncommon in rural areas, which makes sense given the utilitarian relationships people in rural areas are more likely to have with a range of different animals–from farm to wild animals.
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Human evolution may have been shaped by our pets. But if humans want to avoid food poisoning, they shouldn’t feed their pets in the kitchen.
In LiveScience.com, Jeremy Hsu quotes paleoanthropologist Pat Shipman as saying, “Once you undergo that funny ecological transition that hardly any other animal has made, you have double the advantage if you become extremely alert and extremely observant of what other animals are doing, where they are, how they move, how they communicate with each other. The animal connection runs through the whole [human history] and connects the other big evolutionary leaps, including stone tools, language and domestication. Instead of being isolated discoveries, there’s a theme here. It’s very deep and very old.”
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