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For this paper, please choose one point from each of the ten chapters and briefly summarize that point in your own words. Then write a reflection on that point; that is, explain your personal response to that point. Do you agree or disagree with the point? How does that point make you feel? Do you have personal experience with that point? And so on. Here is an example from chapter 1 and please do not use it:
In Ch.1 Herzog cites research that many pet owners look like their pets. Convergence theory argues that pets and their guardians grow to look more alike over time, while selection theory argues that people subconsciously choose pets that look like them. Research supports selection theory. I personally agree with this theory. My friend Theresa is thin with long black hair and wide-set green eyes. Her favorite color is gray; most of her clothing is this color. Theresa is always posting pictures of her cat Luna on Facebook, and Luna is long and sleek with gray fur and large green eyes. Theresa told me when she adopted Luna from a shelter two years ago she fell in love with her because she was so beautiful. To this day I laugh because Theresa does not realize that she and her cat look so alike! I believe selection theory, that Theresa subconsciously chose Luna because of the cat’s resemblance to herself.
POINT 1:
The thirty-minute drive from the Kansas City airport to the conference hotel was much more interesting than the three-hour flight from North Carolina. I had flown in for the annual meeting of the International Society of Anthrozoology. I found myself sharing a ride with a woman named Layla Esposito, a social psychologist who tells me she recently completed her PhD dissertation on bullying among middle school children. Puzzled, I ask her why she was attending a meeting on the relationships between people and animals. She tells me that she is a program director at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. She is at the conference to let researchers know about a new federal grant program that will fund research on the effects that animals have on human health and well-being. The money is coming from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Mars, the corporate giant that makes Snickers for me and Tempting Tuna Treats for my cat, Tilly. NIH is particularly interested in the impact of pets on children: Is pet therapy an effective treatment for autism? What role does oxytocin (the so-called love hormone) play in our attachment to pets? Are children raised with pets less susceptible to asthma?”
POINT 2 :
“Of the 65,000 species of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians on the planet, only a handful merit much human concern. Why do we care about the giant panda but not the giant salamander, the eagle but not the vulture, the bluebird but not the sparrow, the jaguar but not the Dayak fruit bat (one of only two species of mammals in which males produce milk)? The ways that we think about animals are often determined by species’ characteristics—how attractive the creatures are, their size, the shape of their head, whether they are furry (good) or slimy (bad), and how closely they resemble humans. Too many legs or not enough legs are negatives. So are disgusting habits like eating feces or sucking blood. How an animal’s flesh tastes also counts, though not as much as you might think”
Point 3:
“WHAT EXACTLY IS A PET?
Nancy and Sarah show that sometimes the human-pet relationship works out and sometimes it does not. But what exactly is a pet? The historian Keith Thomas argues that pets are animals that are allowed in the house, given a name, and never eaten. This is a good a place to start, but there are exceptions. My neighbors never let their dog inside, and my dentist has not named his tropical fish. Even the eating part has occasional exceptions. One evening when I was a graduate student studying alligator behavior in Florida, Mary Jean and I dropped in on our friend Jim, a retired agriculture professor whose property bordered the lake that was my base of operations. Jim kept a menagerie around his minifarm—goats, bantam chickens, Muscovy ducks, a couple of peacocks, a Chinese pug, and some guinea pigs that were his kids’ pets. His wife and kids were away for the weekend and Jim was making himself dinner. As we chatted, he nonchalantly took a guinea pig from its cage, bopped it on the head with a stick, skinned it and put it on the grill. I guess he didn’t consider it a pet”
Point 4:
“OODLES OF POODLES: WHY DOG BREEDS SUDDENLY BECOME POPULAR
The rapid rise and fall in the popularity of some dog breeds raises the more general question of what fuels changes in human cultures. Take Crocs, those ugly, squishy plastic shoes. Did Crocs become popular because they were in some objective sense superior to other shoes—cheaper, more comfortable, better for your back? Or were they simply a fad that swept across American culture like the flu?
87We can ask the same question about the sudden popularity of breeds like rottweilers. After all, rottweilers are expensive to feed, have to be delivered by C-section, and are prone to hip dysplasia, diabetes, cataracts, and Addison’s disease. Theirs was not, however, the biggest fad in American canine history. That distinction belongs to poodles. Between 1946 and 2007, 5.5 million poodle puppies were registered with the AKC, 2 million more than the runner-up, Labrador retrievers. Poodle popularity peaked in 1969, when nearly a third of all new registrations were for poodles and the AKC hired a full-time staffer just to handle the glut of poodle paperwork. The ascendancy of the breed was fast; yearly registrations increased 12,000% between 1949 and 1969. The poodle craze was not limited to dogs. Poodle skirts, usually white or pink and embellished with the silhouette of a French poodle, became de rigeur for the bobby-sox crowd. Today, they are hot items on eBay”
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