Pets and Animals in Stories

Where are they?

My niece’s beloved O’Malley waiting for her to arrive home. He meows loudly through the open window as she approaches. Noteworthy: when she returns home late at night, he actually lowers his loud cry… out of respect for the neighbours, it seems! She has him trained so well that he sits patiently while she dishes out food, waiting for her word to begin to eat!

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77% of Canadian households have a pet. 44% of households have a cat and/or dog.

That means that 33% of homes have something else: fish are #3 pet choice. The numbers of wild animals kept as pets—and just what those animals are (50,000 spiders, for instance!) is surprising. To me, anyway.

But pause a minute (let’s not do the obvious pun here!): Almost half of Canadian homes have a cat or dog or both in them!

In the States, that number for overall pets is 66%, with Gen Z (18-25) by FAR having more than any other age group. It’s noteworthy really, how many more. What does this say? Covid? Loneliness? Pets in lieu of children…?

Why do we have animals in our homes? Why are there not more animals in our stories?

A post about animal stories as a genre—in which animals are the main characters—should be all its own; here, we’ll look at animals in secondary and tertiary roles.