Houzz surveyed 10,000 pet owners in 11 countries: the United States, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Germany, Australia and Japan. The Houzz survey found that Americans are particularly lenient when it comes to pets, and the most likely to treat dogs and cats as members of the family.
Why Do We Have Pets?
The overwhelming majority of pet owners surveyed — from 71 percent in France to 90 percent in the U.S. — say the top benefit of owning a pet is that it makes them happy. And in the U.S., more than 70 percent of 3,100 pet owners surveyed say their pets help them reduce stress.
Miami University professor Allen R. McConnell runs a research lab that studies processes associated with human-constructed relationships, including how pets affect well-being. He says the Houzz study and his own research show that people who own pets reap a variety of positive benefits. “Pet owners are happier, have higher self-esteem, are less lonely and have more self-reported exercise and physical fitness,” McConnell says.
What’s more, the Houzz study and McConnell’s research show that many pet owners are paying this happiness back to their pets by letting them lounge on furniture, sleep in their owners’ beds and pampering them with expensive dog food and special products. (No study has been done on whether a chihuahua is indeed happy in a pumpkin costume.)
Pets on Furniture
Cats are especially likely to have free rein with furniture in the U.S. (78 percent of respondents) and least likely in France (35 percent). And dogs are also most likely to have full access to furniture in the U.S. (48 percent), and least likely in France (15%).
The same goes for beds. Cats are especially likely to snuggle up with his or her owner in the U.S. (53 percent), and least likely in France and Germany (30 percent each). Dogs are also particularly likely to sleep in their owner’s bed in the U.S. (41 percent), and least likely in Spain (14 percent).
Why do Americans allow this? It’s hard to say. “Dogs sleeping on beds and people buying sweaters for cats is more of a U.S. phenomenon,” McConnell says. “We spend over $50 billion annually in this country on pet supplies and animal care.”
He says part of our pet-pampering culture has to do with the wealth of the nation, which allows people more disposable income to spend on pets. Hal Herzog, a professor of psychology at Western Carolina University and the author of
Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat, has been studying various aspects of human-animal interactions for 25 years, including cultural differences in pet keeping.
He suspects the shift in U.S. pet relations happened around the time of
Lassie, the 1950s-era TV show about a boy and his collie. “The show had a big impact on kids and parents, who thought their kids needed to grow up with a dog to be psychologically happy,” Herzog says. “Then the pet products industry gets involved and feeds this with advertising.” He also points to studies done on how other media — and celebrities — influence which kinds of breeds become popular.
Spreading Like Dander
But the phenomenon isn’t confined to our borders. Herzog says these attitudes toward pets, just like Coca-Cola, appear to be spreading around the world. Again, the Houzz survey appears to support this.
In the survey, pet owners in Australia and Italy (43 percent each) were most likely to make pet-related upgrades to their homes in the last two years. Pet owners in France were least likely, at 27 percent.
“The French are stricter and follow their veterinarian’s advice to give the pets a lower position than humans and keep them away from the
sofa and beds for hygiene reasons, like hair and smells,” says Valerie Dramard, a veterinarian in France.
Over the border in Italy, things are the opposite. Luca Cantini, an Italian veterinary doctor specializing in animal behavior and an expert in the relationship between pets and the spaces they live in, especially homes, says he’s seeing more people remodeling their homes for pets and considering their animals to be part of the family.
“The pet-oriented homes of Italians is only a consequence of the sometimes chaotic but always love-oriented relationship Italians have with their family members: It’s a granny kind of never-ending hug that touches everyone, pets included,” Cantini says. “The big effort of Italians to offer a better living to their pets at home is linked with a new cultural leap in Italy. Pets are now part of the family and have a precise role in there.… People love to share a day out with them, a relaxed afternoon on the terrace or a [vacation]. Pets are the answer to everyone’s natural need to care and be cared for.”
Elena Ambrosimova, an editor at Houzz Russia, seemed surprised by the survey’s results that showed Russians (and the Danes) were least likely to say their pets were in charge of their home (4 percent each; Italy was the highest, at 12 percent). She sees quite the opposite. “Every pet in Russia is pretty sure it’s their house and they are the real owner,” she says. “We are like maids for them.”
She points to a popular animated cartoon about two dogs called
Bobik Visits Barbos, in which Barbos gives a tour of his two-bedroom apartment while his owner is out, acting as if the furniture,
refrigerator and bed are his own and the “grandpa” owner is indeed the pet. “Pets don’t have special furniture,” she says. “They have ours.”
The Spanish are the least likely to let their pets sleep in their beds (14 percent). Ana Martin Fiestas, who works in the Houzz Spain office, says she doesn’t allow her dog to sleep in her bed. “In general, we are very concerned with our houses being clean,” she says. “It might seem silly, but I don’t think in other countries people clean as much as we do in Spain. When it comes to pets, they shed and dribble and have dirty paws, so I think it’s not very hygienic to have them in our beds.”
Anna Bosch, who lives in Madrid with a golden retriever, echoes Fiestas’ feeling. “I really love dogs and I pamper them, but they are still dogs,” Bosch says. “Even though you think they are clean, dogs lose a lot of hair and they smell like dogs. They do not use shoes, and all the dirt from the streets comes with them inside the house. My bedroom is my kingdom, and I want it to be as clean as possible. It is a matter of hygiene. I do not let my dog climb onto the sofas as well.”
Bosch is right about those issues. Allowing pets indoors will inevitably lead to three things: hair, dirt and odors, which the survey found to be the top pet peeves in homes throughout the 11 countries surveyed.
Are Dogs People, Too?
Of course, not everyone feels happier with a pet. If you’ve ever owned a cat that sprayed your bed or furniture when he or she was upset about something, or if you’ve experienced the diminishing importance of your pet, no matter how slight, after having children, you probably fall into this category.
In an op-ed piece in
The New York Times, neuroeconomics professor Gregory Berns argues that dogs are people, too, and that MRI scans he’s done on dogs show that they have the emotional capacity of a human child, and we should rethink how we treat — and discipline — them.
Herzog takes issue with this. “I don’t think dogs are people, and treating them as such isn’t good for them,” he says. One example he gives is when a homeowner imposes their own dietary preferences on their pets. Like when a vegan doesn’t feed his or her cat meat. “That’s not healthy for cats. They’re carnivores,” Herzog says.
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Nevertheless, the rise in the level of companionship between humans and dogs seems to have rapidly increased in recent decades, and continues to do so. “People living alone or without kids are more likely to be more attached to their pets, and that’s a change in the last 30 years in the nature of American families,” Herzog says. “More people are living alone, living without kids, having fewer kids, having kids later, living longer — there’s a larger demographic of Americans attached to pets.”
This article is part of a collaboration between
Pets Best pet health insurance and Houzz. We’ve teamed up to provide you this series of articles focused on pets and homes. Enjoy!
