The overriding impression to emerge from this study is the extent to which pet owners' relationships with their animals, particularly their cats and dogs, parallels human life and relationships. Thus responsibility, care, cost and control are elements of the relationship, as are mutual support, reward, affection and, in the most extreme cases, obsession. As motivations for ownership, however, these elements/benefits are not on a continuum, in that the possible negatives are not realistically weighed up against the positives. Rather, the emotional rewards of ownership are so great that the rational objections to ownership simply don't have much influence on the final decision. Thus, a (potential) owner will acknowledge the likely hassles of ownership, but be ultimately influenced by the emotional positives and benefits.
"Sometimes I think I should have written a book on the sagas of our pets. One year I missed all the Christmas parties because I was home feeding our cat through a straw".
"Mum said she couldn't bear the responsibility of a pet anymore, so she took our dog to the pound and left it there. But then after two hours she couldn't bear it anymore, so she went back to collect him. She had to pay $90!"
"I don't think I could ever be poor enough not to feed my cats".
"You've got to have a dog. I'd never be without a dog".
"It's not an easy thing to explain how I feel about Lucky...."
"The money doesn't come into it, just like you don't cost your children out".
"The cost is part of bringing up a dog, I don't really mind the dollars because we have so much fun".
"My son said only the other day 'I still miss Sissie' and I said I miss her too"
Just as rational disincentives to ownership don't carry much weight, so the rational arguments in favour of ownership are ultimately unsatisfactory as well. They turn out to be exactly that, rationalisations. Thus, the watchdog turns out to be a "sook"; parents talk about acquiring a pet so that their children can learn "responsibility" by caring for it, and then they laughingly admit that this so-called advantage came to nothing. Instead, the children had benefited at an emotional level from the love and affection generated by pet ownership.
"We got him as a watchdog but he's hopeless. He'd lick a burglar to death".
"The kids promised the world, but nothing happened "That doesn't matter though, they learn things in other ways, like loving and caring for someone else besides themselves".
"They give you back the love you give them".
In the final analysis, owning a pet is a bit like falling in love - one does it in spite of any rational awareness and discussion of the problems which might ensue. Similarly, one becomes a parent knowing that raising children has its problems.
Recognition of the separation of these rational/emotional and positive/negative factors is fundamental to our interpretation of the factors influencing pet ownership: they are not two sides of an equation, rather they are two separate "agendas". Graphically, it is possible to illustrate them in the following way. The diagram opposite also serves to signpost some of the issues discussed in subsequent chapters of this report.