History

History of Pets

Pets have been there since the beginning of time however; historians are not sure when humans first started keeping animals as pets. Keeping an animal for pleasure rather than for food or work was possible only for people who were well off and had the resources to feed extra mouths.

Pets have been around since the beginning of time. Cats are among the first to be domesticated. They were thought to be domesticated from the African wild cat. The cat is a predator and very intelligent. They supposedly hunt over 1,000 species. Cats have been domestic pets since Ancient Egypt times. They were around in circa 4000 b.c. and their job was keeping mice and rats away. Although this was what they were initially kept for, cats are trainable and obey simple commands, so after a while they became a companion.

The dog was domesticated from Wolves as recent as 15,000 years ago or possibly as early as 100,000 years ago. The dog was thought to have been from East Asia. The early settlers brought domestic dogs over to North America with them. The first were the Chow, Shar Pei, Akita Inu, Shiba Inu and the Basenji. These breeds are associated with China, which seems to be behind the theory of domestic dogs originating in East Asia. Dogs were initially used for work and protection and then in time became more like a part of the family.