Summary
PETS: Laurie Taylor talks to Jane Hamlett, Senior Lecturer in Modern British History at Royal Holloway, University of London, about her study of the British love affair with pets over the last two century. She found that the kinds of pets we keep, as well as how we relate to and care for them, has changed radically. Most importantly, pets have played a powerful emotional role in families across all social classes, creating new kinds of relationships and home lives.
Also Jessica Amberson, Lecturer in Adult and Continuing Education at University College, Cork, takes us on a dog walk and explores what this mundane daily activity means for a canine owner and how it helps shapes the identity of a ‘dog person’?
Producer: Jayne Egerton
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
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| 0:36.7 | This is a Thinking Loud Podcasts from the BBC and for more details and much, much more about thinking aloud, go to our website at BBC.co. UK. |
| 0:47.0 | Hello today's principal topic the British love affair with pets |
| 0:53.2 | prompts, well it prompts a veritable tsunami of personal anecdotes. |
| 0:57.7 | I mean, did I ever tell you for instance about the catastrophic day |
| 1:01.3 | when our next-door neighbor in Liverpool came round to lay claim to our cat. |
| 1:05.6 | I'm so sorry, she said, pointing down our hallway, but that's definitely my ginger. |
| 1:10.0 | No, it's not we were tested. It's ours, it's our cuddles. |
| 1:13.6 | It took some time to establish that the cat, let's call it ginger cuddles, had been happily |
| 1:19.7 | living and eating and meowing in both our homes for the best part of a year. |
| 1:24.5 | I quite forget the reservation of this dispute, but I'm happy to say it was not solomonic. |
| 1:30.0 | But fortunately I now have an excellent chance to step away from such local domestic squabbles and embrace a far wider pet perspective, |
| 1:39.0 | not mere cats and dogs and goldfish and bunsary |
| 1:43.0 | and parrots but the extraordinary menagerie of pet beasts |
| 1:47.2 | described and discussed in a magisterial book entitled |
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