Companion Animals in Obituaries: An Exploratory Study

Autor: D. C. Turner, Cindy C. Wilson, F. E. Netting, Cara H. Olsen
Rok vydání: 2013
Předmět:
Zdroj: Anthrozoös. 26:227-236
ISSN: 1753-0377
0892-7936
Popis: The benefits of human–animal interaction have been discussed extensively in the literature. In this paper we take a slightly different strategy in documenting that some humans acknowledge the importance of pets by actually referring to them in human obituaries. We begin with a brief overview of the human obituary, followed by the potential for pets as fictive kin to be named as survivors in obituaries. A bi-national, exploratory, content analysis of companion animal (CA)-related content in published newspaper obituaries is reported. The two criteria for inclusion were that a pet or pet survivors be named in the obituary or that donations be made to a pet-related charity. Of the 11,818 obituaries in three newspapers over a three-month period, 260 (2.2%) met one or both of these criteria. Five themes emerged within obituaries containing CA data. First, the word “pet” was rarely used. CAs were typically listed as survivors along with human family members. Second, terms of endearment were consistently...
Databáze: OpenAIRE