Why Do We Love Pets More Than People?

And that makes you a zoophilist

Two-thirds of Americans have a pet or live with an animal. In the United Kingdom, the ratio is about half of all households. For the most part, we love our pets, although others couldn’t care less.

Do we love our pets more than we love the people around us? And is that wrong?

Our friends we choose, generally, because we like them. Family we don’t so much as choose, as find them arriving in our lives, from our own children to those of other close family members. Most we will like, some not. Family and friends come to us readymade and we have little or no control over how they grew into the people they are today.

We love them all the same, well, most of them.

Our Pets, we Adore, Above Family

With some pets, in today’s world, we can order an off-the-shelf animal with the characteristics we want. This is especially true of dogs, man’s best friend. Designer dogs, breed to meet the specific needs of their new owner. Order a Cockerpoo with a particular temperament, or a Pug with an especially flat face.

There are arguments that these designer dogs should never have been created, that it is cruel and in some cases, actually causes distress to the animal. Leaving aside whether such interference with nature is a good or bad thing, we will almost without fail, love our new pet.

The need for company, goes back tens of thousands of years, and a pet in the home can be of great comfort to those who may be alone. Some people live entirely alone, whereas others are on their own in the home, perhaps when a partner is at work.

This loneliness can manifest itself into love for a pet, which becomes stronger than that for their spouse. After all, the other half is out for maybe 10 hours a day, or kids for much of the day at a school, where the dog or cat is around you all the time. Is it any wonder that love can become stronger for the animal in people’s lives, that their human counterparts?

There is a special term that describes those who love their pets more than people, zoophilists.

Definition of zoophilist

A lover of animals; especially one that is more fond of animals than humans.

One who is opposed to any animal experimentation; also known as an anti-vivisectionist.

~The English Encyclopaedia

We care for animals in the same way we do for our children. We have empathy for a puppy, a baby, a child, and an adult dog.

We live in a culture, where we love our pets more than people. Is that true in your own life?