What makes a "pet" a "pet"?

A question of perspective... The hellbender thread has a bee in my bonnet and got me thinking beyond my normal "eat, drink, visit the 'loo, sleep, repeat" routine. How do you folks view the animals under your care? Are they pets? Do you name them? If so, all of them, or just the few you're closest to? Is there a correlation between the number of animals you have and whether you name them? Are men and women equally disposed to naming? Is age a factor? I used to have a Dicamptodon named "Kong" but he was the only caudate ever I bothered to name. As an ol' fart at 40, with over 50 adult animals plus offspring currently under my care, I find the prospect personally unthinkable, but my adults DO have ID#s to track their activities, which I guess is sort of like naming. My daughter keeps wanting to name whatever animal I let her hold, and a co-worker tries to name anything that arrives by mail to my workplace. (I'm gonna give her a portion of blackworms and let her go to town!) I guess I reserve naming for things that might actually respond to that name, though my mother's classroom rabbit is an exception. I don't consider my caudates to be my "pets" as much as "animals under my care", to be observed and maintained, hopefully bred as a testament to my good care. I like them, in fact they mean quite a bit to me, many respond to my presence, but they are still not "pets" to me. Maybe it's two separate issues, since I suspect zoo and farm animals get named from time to time and aren't generally considered to be "pets". Or, does naming an animal and identifying with it on a more personal level transform it, whether it be holstein, hippo, hellbender, or hamster, from it's respective label of farm animal, zoo specimen, caudate, or "traditional pet" into a "pet" for the person who names it? Is it responsiveness? Is it "ownership"? No criticism of holders of any opinion please, but I'd be interest in your thoughtful responses...

I tend to refer to my axolotl by name....mainly because the children named them..like wise the cats are refered to those 'pesky cats'( thats on a good day). In our case the first animals tend to be given a name, then for some reason beyond my control reproduce ( "yes madam they are all males") the offspring tend not to be named as I usually intend to move them on to new homes etc. In my mind naming them makes them more of our pet/or a type of affection bestowed upon them. Having thought about it various visitors tend to ask what they are called. I hate naming things ( the children where hard enough work) as some one tends to comment on the choice.I refer to my two axolotl and the two cats as our pets, but the fish/frogs aren't as I do very little for them.

I refer to my animals as 'pets' as it's easier to explain to people that way, but I don't think of them as pets. A few of the snakes have names, and a spare handful of the amphibians, but again, that's because at outreach events, kids ask "What's its name?" and I let them name it, and some have stuck. I usually talk to my animals while in the room or cleaning the tanks, and I am attached to them, but I don't see them as pets per se. The cat, she's a pet. We interact every day, I cuddle her, harass her at all costs. I don't plan on breeding her (she's spayed anyway), so she's more of a pet than the salamanders.

Well my closest "pets" had names. As you know my mudpuppy is very close to me and has a name. My Leopard gecko (rest his soul :angel had a name because he was my first real pet.

But I also have a fish, a lot of caterpillars that I breed, and all though they are close to me they don't have names. Simply because there are to many. Naming caterpillars would be like naming feeder crickets or nightcrawlers.

Hi Brian,
I suppose in the very broad sense of the word any animal that we keep is a pet. Still, I agree with Kaysie in that I usually do not consider my animals as pets but more as breeding (hopefully) groups. My fiance bought a single African Pixie frog at a show 6 months ago so I suppose that it qualifies as a pet. When it comes to naming animals that do not recognize their names (such as all herps, invertebtrates, and fish) I personally think that is a trend common with youngsters and females. Don't shoot me ladies but in my experience women in general and kids tend to view herps and so on in a much more anthropomorphic sense that men.
Chip

Like Brian, I've had exactly one caudate that I ever named. My first newts were experimental animals, so I never really considered them pets. The one I named was unique in appearance among that group, and had several near-death experiences, so I guess I "bonded" with that one! Her name was Delta, which is the Greek symbol used to mean "change".

I used to volunteer at a wildlife museum that made a point of answering the "what's its name" question with "these are WILD animals, so we don't name them". I think that has affected my attitude toward naming animals. My newts aren't exactly wild animals, but they aren't exactly pets either.

That said, I do enjoy the "personalities" of these animals and I admit to occasionally talking to them:wink:

When people ask me what pets do I have, I answer two Shiba Inus, a Maine Coon Cat, a short hair cat who was a stray and a wife..

I think the way to look at it is in this manner..
Do you interact in a social way with the animal (social can be based on human sociality or based on the animals' needs), for example, when we get home our dogs greet us a missing pack mates and want to smell our breath (to see if we had food they did not and check over or that the cats come over to get attention from us once the dogs go out (I just had to remove the stray from my lap).

You don't see this sort of interaction with caudates.. (head bobbing at an adult male iguana would count but if you engage in that behavior you better be willing to deal with the response from the iguana). The closest you get is a conditioned feeding response to your presence particuarly in Tylototriton and Ambystomids....

Some comments

Ed

PS: the pets in the house that have names are the two Shibas, the cats and the wife...

I consider all of my newts "pets" (I guess I am one of those women who anthropomorphize their animals). Actually, in theory I know they are animals and not humans, but in my heart they are little persons. Of course I don't pick them up and pet them and kiss them and take them to bed with me; I consider my feeding and caring for them interacting, and some of the newts are more interactive than others (especially my Tylos). I see them as pets by the function they have in my life: I think about them when I'm not there, they give me purpose and meaning (what a loser am I! I never married or had kids), they make me feel like I'm not alone in my house (and my life), they feel like my family. I put pictures of them up on my locker at work and people ask me about them. I'll admit I "love" some of them more than others. If I lost a cat, or my corn snake Jasmine, or one of my Tylos Eddie and Elektra, I would cry. Then again I cry at a good commercial.
When I was a kid I read some story that when an animal gets a name it receives a soul. That still affects me. I am probably a somewhat extreme example of what a "scientist" looks down on, although I know that to them I am only "The Big Hand" that brings worms. Unrequited love.

Dawn,

Nothing to be ashamed of, though ashamed is probably too strong a word. You are as entitled to your feelings as anyone else. I've heard of far sillier motivations in this world, as I'm sure you have seen as well. Guys who live for bands, sports teams, sci-fi movies, invisible dogs who tell them to shoot people. Women with TV shows, celebrities, cats. And while I suspect, as Chip does, that women and younger people are slightly more predisposed to it, there are PLENTY of guys doing it too. I did name my snakes when I kept them, but I was much younger and there were only 3 (who am I kidding, if I ever got another, I'd probably name it again)... Some interesting responses from everyone so far!

I later thought, actually, sometimes I do feel motivated to give them a little kiss. When I do, I kiss my finger and press it to their tank. I learned that from seeing visitors at work (a prison)!

Now Dawn you realize of course that if we worked together on the same nursing unit I would never let you hear the end of naming and "kissing" your newts! Seriously though, there is certainly nothing wrong with viewing animals in an anthropomorphic sense as long as it does not interfer with (or especially contradict) good husbandry practices. Living in a college town I still see the random person (usually a student) taking a snake out for a stroll (around said person's neck) on sunny days because "the snake likes it". Never mind that it is 55 F out.
Chip

Where I work, I never hear the end of it anyway. Some of my colleagues' favorite names for me are "kook" and "weirdo." Said affectionately. I think. When someone asks me a question and I go off on describing my larvae or something, I see a lot of eye-rolling. Though they don't walk away! One nurse even asked me for pictures of my animals to decorate the med room (where she gives out hundreds of pills a day to a line of prisoners). And there is a small enclave of inmates in the wheelchair unit that, although they don't know what the internet is, who the president is, and are even illiterate, can tell you the difference between a reptile and an amphibian!

I have named a handful of my axolotls, but only ones that were in the original group and one that has very unusual colouration. I don't consider them 'pets' though because to me a "pet" is something that you can actually pet without it being at risk of getting open sores, or getting scared and hiding from your finger!

Never named an amphibian I've kept in captivity. I won't deny there's a pet aspect to this for me but my motivation is more to do with a strange boyish fascination with newts. And I've never had significant numbers of newts in my care, apart from larvae.

I tend to think that the word pet has a strong association with taming or domesticating -(I'm a nerd so I looked it up in the dictionary!) However, it also includes in the definition, a part about a "pet" being a favorite or something that one has affection for.
I don't name my newts, but I do have affection for them and know them individually. You can't "tame" a newt, but they do respond to feeding and interaction. About all of my newts that I have had for over a year, and some less, watch me and get active while I am around. They don't seem to have the same fear of me that they had when they were first purchased.
That being said, I have allergies, so I can't have a pet with fur. And I must like my newts a lot because not thinking of them as pets seems detached to me and I certainly spend way too much time caring for them to be detached! I think you have to have some affection for them to put in all the time and money it takes to maintain them.

audrey said:

You can't "tame" a newt, but they do respond to feeding and interaction.

Click to expand...

In my experience some tiger salamanders can become so used to captivity and humans that they will sit on your bare arm with no fear of you, no fear of sudden movements, nothing - they will even crawl on to me if placed on the ground and I lay down.

This is certainly the result of interactions leading to feeding, but in my opinion it far surpasses the behaviour we observe in most newts. I'm not crediting them with intelligence but I firmly believe that this means that they have completely overcome the instinctual fear of predation that most small animals exhibit, even if relatively tame. To me this most definitely means they are tame, certainly in as much as an animal with such a tiny and "primitive" brain can be.

I see and hear of kids who have leopard geckos and I can't help but feel sorry for the kids, especially from a the point of view of genuine interaction.

Disclaimer 1: I am not advocating the unnecessary handling of salamanders.
Disclaimer 2: Not all tiger salamanders become tame, in my experience particularly when they are not familiarised with humans soon after metamorphosis.

I am with the not naming group. A few of my pets have earned names(the only current one is a tarantula, which everyone "adores" and my cousin dubbed "Lila"). Earlier ones would be a tiger salamander I kept named Ally.

I view most of my pets more as specimens. The way that I see it is that by keeping them in captivity I can get a close up and intimate glimpse into their lives that I would not get otherwise, and to me that is very interesting. I sometimes discourage "domestication" such as association of me or tweezers with food. Animals that do get fixated on tweezers or me become harder to feed efficiently, though it does give an advantage of making sure everyone gets a fare share in group tanks, so with some I will simply drop stuff that they can hunt into their tank for a time(the karelinii seemed surprised, expecting some fat redworms to be offered up when instead a bunch of blackworms started running for cover). But I can't deny thinking they are cute and talking to them to amuse myself occasionally. But most of the time when I am observing the animals I try to make connections between their behavior and life in the wild.

everything must have a name!

I name everything!
I have a plecostomus, two paddletails and a fire salamander and their names , respectively are:
plecostomus
newt
newt
salamander.
I even name the guys i feed them on, giving them snappy lttle handles like woodlouse, worm, and bloodworm.

Peter will be appearing on stage for the next 5 days for sold-out performances of his comedy routine.

Thanks John, complimentary tickets on their way to you and a freind of your choice (human or caudate)