| Pets are those animals who live together with man and he provides them food and shelter. Pets are useful to humans either as a source of materialistic benefits and services, or as companions who bring charms and leisure. The majority of pets breed very easily. By selection, man can control the reproduction of pets and also the characters that get inherited to the next generation.
General characteristics
Some pets bring direct material benefits to the man, for example, either as a source of food (milk, meat), fabric (wool), or by carrying out work (transportation of goods, security). The second largest category is companion-animals who provide enjoyment, give pleasure and with whom one can communicate. For urban people, the concept of “pets” is often associated with the second category, i.e. “Domestic favorites”. Animals of the same breed can act as one or the other category. For example, some people rear rabbits for meat and fur, and others rear rabbits in the house as a favorite.
Pets can be reared in special premises (farmyard, stable, doghouse), but they can also live directly in the house of humans. Of those animals which live in the house, some are kept in cages, aquariums, terrariums and other “small houses”, and others (for example, cats, dogs, rabbits and even monkeys) are allowed to move freely in the premises.
Pets mainly eat commercially produced feeds from specially selected components. These feeds are not only easy to use but also provide the animal with all the necessary nutrients. For example mixed fodder for agricultural animals and food for cats or dogs.
Many families, which rear any type of animals in the house, notice that these animals provide coziness, calmness and remove stress.
Besides pets there can be undesirable tenants in the house called house animals. They live in the house or near to the house of man without invitation, without bringing any use and sometimes even harming the humans. These are rats, mice and cockroaches. House animals constitute a more extensive group of sinanthropus animals living near to the habitation of humans.
Breeding in captivity
Pets have evolved from wild animals living freely. Many wild animals can be tamed, especially at a young age, and even kept in houses. Sometimes it happens that the wild animals are easily tamed, but they rarely breed in the conditions of captivity. But if the tamed animals breed, their issues must again be tamed.
Unlike wild animals, tamed or pets in captivity, as a rule, breed easily. In that case, when such breeding is required, fertility is considered of very good quality. It is not necessary to tame the issues of pets - characteristic traits, which make the animals a pet, are in the genes and are passed onto the next generations. This genetic pattern has developed in the process of selection done by people for centuries.
The number of species of pets is very small compared with the total number of species found in the animal world. So, in the world there are more than two thousand species of mammals, and in the species of pets around 40. If from the list of pets some doubtful representatives are excluded, like useful insects (bee, cochineal insect, two-three types of silkworm) and two species of fishes (small gold fish and carp), the species of “actual” pets left are only 27.
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Summer time is vacation time, and many people wish they could take their pets on vacation. It's hard enough even when you have chihuahua, or a small cat, but bigger pets bring bigger problems.
