Pet parenting is a modern trend with ancient roots | CBC News

If you treat your dog like a child, don’t be embarrassed. It’s the end result of thousands of years of shared history.

Ninety-five per cent of Canadian pet owners count their animals as family, and almost half say they think of themselves as parents to their pets, says a survey by pet service company Pawzy.

Nowhere is this more obvious than with dogs. Today’s dog parents send their pooches to daycare, dress them up for Halloween, and even take them for photos with Santa — activities previously reserved only for kids. 

Birthday “paw-ties” and “bark” mitzvahs may be recent innovations, but dogs have sparked our nurturing instincts from the earliest stages of their evolution.

Historians once believed human beings created dogs by catching wolf pups and breeding the tamest ones together, but that would have been risky business. Wolves don’t tame easily, and it would have taken generations of breeding before their descendants were reliably safe to be around.

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