\n<\/p>\n
Three quarters of pet-owning Christians (75%) in the US have dogs, while less than half (43%) possess cats.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s according to a Pew Research Center<\/a> report released this summer. In religious breakouts provided to CT, figures showed that twice as many Christian pet owners (53%) only own dogs while less than a quarter (21%) exclusively own cats. About 1 in 5 (22%) own both. The numbers track with what veterinarian Nancy Moore has observed anecdotally at Christian vet conferences.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s pretty rare, [but] we do get occasional cats,\u201d said Moore, who serves as the southeast region representative for the Christian Veterinary Mission. \u201cI think that the human wants the cat out [and about], but I don\u2019t know if the cat agrees with the human. Cats aren\u2019t notoriously well known for wanting to go into strange places.\u201d<\/p>\n In her own life, Moore is on \u201cTeam Cat\u201d (she owns three of them). While she\u2019s thought about being a dog-owner, her busy travel life inhibits that.<\/p>\n Dogs have a constant desire for social company, she said. That requires a special kind of attention. Yet Moore also explained that the dog\u2019s more extroverted nature can reflect that of the church: a culture of life together.<\/p>\n A 2019 report<\/a> examining how religion predicts pet ownership found that those who attend religious services more often had a higher likelihood of owning fewer pets. Theological affiliation or belief, however, had little to do with pet ownership.<\/p>\n Churchgoers were less likely to own cats, the study showed. However, there was little association between worship attendance and dog ownership.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the one hand, certain personality types might simultaneously attract some Americans toward religious participation and away from pets, and cats in particular,\u201d stated the report\u2019s authors, sociologists Samuel Perry and Ryan Burge.<\/p>\n \u201cAlternatively, to the extent that pet ownership is a partial substitute for human bonding and interaction, Americans more deeply embedded within a religious community may have less need (or time) for pets generally, and specifically more independent \u2018roommate pets,\u2019 like cats.\u201d<\/p>\n Regardless of what compels Christian pet owners to adopt their feline friends, \u201cCats Need No Justification\u201d was the argument and headline<\/a> of one 1988 piece from former CT editor Mary Stewart van Leeuwen.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n The annual cost of feeding, vaccinating, and sometimes transporting three cats is still not trivial. I once heard someone assert that it was immoral for Christians to lavish food and care on pets when so many human beings were physically and emotionally starved. \u2026 C. S. Lewis would have disagreed. He was certain that animals have more than just a utilitarian function for people.<\/p>\n
\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Some might be under the impression, however, that cats only have utilitarian functions for people. Cats are more likely to keep to themselves throughout the day, only to later come out of nowhere to demand something, says Moore.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a joke in veterinary medicine: \u2018Dogs have masters and cats have servants,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Many Christian pet owners go beyond seeing dogs as domestic help\u2014they instead see them as part of the family. Nearly half (48%) said they see their pets as a family member and about equal numbers (49%) said they were part of the family, though not quite a family member.<\/p>\n