As I watched a Netflix documentary, “Nature: Animal Odd Couples,” I had a light bulb moment. I felt compelled to share it.

In the pet industry and social media, there is a term that never really sat well with me. It’s called “pet humanization.”

The pet food industry believes that the reason some people choose premium products that mirror our standard of living for their pets is because of this phenomenon.

They say we tend to reflect our needs onto them. They say it explains the trend toward higher standards for pets in nutrition, veterinary medicine, quality of enrichment (toys), and even behavior and interaction.

Odd Couples

What I learned from the documentary is that complex cross-species relationships have likely been occurring (unbeknownst to us) for thousands of years.

The documentary goes over some examples that occur in captivity. They include a coyote and his lion pal, a yellow lab and a cheetah that are best friends, and a deer that grooms her blind golden retriever buddy every morning. The golden retriever actually regained his sight, and even after that, the bond continued.

There is also the touching story of a blind horse and a goat that were inseparable – the horse relied on the goat to get around. Sadly, the goat deteriorated quickly after the passing of the older horse. He lost his buddy. He was part of the family.

The most amazing odd couple was that of a goose and a tortoise. The goose follows the tortoise everywhere and strikes at anyone that comes near her. The goose is the tortoise’s bodyguard. Geese build lifelong bonds. The goose is securing lasting companionship, and the tortoise enjoys prime time feeding where no one dares compete with it for food.

Sometimes there is no payoff other than friendship, as seen in the golden retriever and deer, or cheetah and lab.

It would be arrogant for us to believe that this just started happening around 2012 (the release date of the documentary). Instead, it is more likely that this has always happened in nature. That the potential for other animals to build complex cross-species relationships to help each other improve their quality of life is a natural occurrence that we’ve only just started paying attention to.

Members of the Family: Catching Up With Nature

Now – back to the pet “humanization trend.” We have been so self-absorbed for 99% of our existence. We’ve only just started paying attention to our animal companions. In China, a growing economy and increasing standard of living is resulting in a boom in new pet ownership. China, it would seem, only recently started experiencing the mainstream value of pet health. Similarly, only 100 years ago we did not keep pets like we do today in America.

So what are we doing now? Finally catching up with nature. We are building complex cross-species relationships with our pets. We are expecting their quality of life to be similar to ours.

Higher Standards

As such, pet parents are raising our standards for pet care and what they deserve. This includes the health care they receive, the quality of their diets and nutrition in dog food, the pet products we seek for them, etc. It’s a continuously growing trend: we give our “fur babies” Christmas presents, feed them high-quality pet treats, throw them birthday parties, and pay for their pet insurance.

According to the ‌American Pet Products Association’s market research, people spent $147 billion on their pets in 2023.

However, spending more money on them doesn’t translate to anthropomorphism. We are not humanizing them – as the video points out, we do not own exclusivity on emotion. More research is showing that animals have always experienced emotion – we just started observing them.

Humanizing? Is the deer “deerizing” the golden retriever? No, it’s just helping in whatever capacity it can because that is its nature.

We are not humanizing anything – instead, pet parents are finally catching up to our own animal instinct for cross-species compassion, and thus our own humanity.

Personally, I can tell you 100% that Rey, Shadow, Roxy, Luna, and Rambo – the pets in my family – have made me more human, and not the other way around. In return, I will always strive to give them back as much of the quality of life and wellness as I can through our work at JustFoodForDogs.

In this context, please enjoy the video of Mr. G and Jellybean: