[ikr678]

Humans have always had pets but they were less of a 'lifestyle' in the past. There is a ton of money and investment in the pet industrial complex now, pets are aspirational, pets are marketted as part of your personality, pets get thier own social media, famous pets have merch lines.

I did a lengthy paid survey a few years back that was sponsored by a VC owned pet supply company in my country. All the questions were to non pet owners, or former reluctant non owners and was aimed at getting data on how much pet ownership improved your life. I have seen the results of this survey paraphased and published in every single major news outlet in my country ('science says pet good!'). Pets are consumption, companies run PR campaigns to promote consumption of their product.

I think the politicisation has come because you can't now criticise the pet or having of pets without it being seen as an attack on the owners whole lifestyle and personal image, for those who have become dog dads/dog mums. But for people who do take a position against it, they have to be willing to make that attack on someone's image to get their point across.

I dont want pets, I think a not insignificant # of people have them for the wrong reasons (like the above comment on trauma rescuing), I think over consumption of pet at a macro level is bad, but I like all the individual dogs and cats I know in my life.