For every young American under the age of 18, there are about two cats or dogs receiving free food and lodgings in US homes and that pattern is replicated in many other countries. So why do so many of us keep pets? Why do we name them, consider them part of the family? Companionship, pleasure, status symbol and kinship with all life have been offered as explanations but it's easy to forget that mass keeping of pets - as opposed to working animals - is a recent development of the last two centuries or so. Iszi Lawrence talks about our evolving relationship with pets with Dr. Anindita Bhadra from the Dog Lab at the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research in Kolkata; Dr. Erin Hecht, evolutionary biologist from Harvard; Dr. Margo DeMello, anthrozoologist from Carroll College in Montana; writer and cultural commentator from Japan Manami Okazaki; Durham University historian Professor Julie-Marie Strange; and Rachel Williams, neuroscientist at UCL and comedian. We also sift through the dozens of comments and pet stories sent in by Forum listeners. (Photo: A young woman with her pet dog. Credit: Luis Alvarez/Getty Images)
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Here is a question for you to ponder while you are listening to this forum from the BBC World Service.
Which of these two animals is more likely to lead a better life?
A pet dog kept well fed and watered in a suburban house in the west, or a street dog roaming freely in the alleyways of an Indian city?
Rachel, you are relatively new to pet keeping.
It's less than a year since you acquired two cats and a dog.
Are they house pets or free spirits?
The cats love the inside and the dog loves the outside.
Anything outside, anything chaseable, that is the dog's thing.
All three of them turned up quite unexpectedly, but they've kind of made our house their home.
So it's a lovely little pet family.
Aw.
And I like the fact that you've gone for both cats and dogs, so you can't be.
You can't pick.