Furry families

Making a Human-Dog Family Through Home

Bibliographic Data

ID3978159
AuthorsEmma Power (0000-0002-2638-0406), Emma R Power (0000-0001-5204-322X, Macquarie University, corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume9
Issue5
Pages535-555
Publication date2008-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial & Cultural Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-9365 • E-ISSN: 1470-1197
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649360802217790
OpenAlexW2082938009
LanguageEN
Citations received140
References cited27

The last fifty years have seen dogs increasingly drawn into the home as family members. While the health and social implications of these relatings have been the focus of much research, the everyday practices by which more-than-human families are constituted have received little attention. The paper draws on interviews with, and diaries recorded by, new dog owners in 2006–2007. It highlights three ways that dogs became family in and through the home. First, describing dogs as ‘furry children’, participants emphasised the time spent caring for dogs. Second, engaging with dogs as ‘pack animals’, participants discussed an inherent ‘otherness’ that shaped family relations, and reconceptualised the human-family as a pack relation. Third, the individual agency of dogs was recognised as shaping family and home. However, these familial relatings were often tenuous as humans were faced with the particular character and ‘otherness’ of dogs. While the majority experienced a strengthening of family ties following the introduction of a dog, a number of individuals discussed the divisive impact of this experience. The paper extends debates about family and home, broadening family beyond biological relations to include more-than-human relationships forged through cohabitation and interaction

Agency (philosophy · Animal welfare · Animal-assisted therapy · Cohabitation · Extended family · Genogram · Nuclear family · Pet therapy · Political science · Social relation · Social science · Sociology · Structure and agency · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Human-Animal Interaction Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub