Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Exploration Of Attitudes Toward Dogs Among College Students In Bangalore, India, Shelly Volsche, Miriam Mohan, Peter B. Gray, Madhavi Rangaswamy

Anthropology Faculty Research

Conversations in the field of anthrozoology include treatment and distinction of food animals, animals as workers versus pests, and most recently, emerging pet trends including the practice of pet parenting. This paper explores attitudes toward pet dogs in the shared social space of urban India. The data include 375 pen-and-paper surveys from students at CHRIST (Deemed to be University) in Bangalore, India. Reflecting upon Serpell’s biaxial concept of dogs as a relationship of affect and utility, the paper considers the growing trend of pet dog keeping in urban spaces and the increased use of affiliative words to describe these relationships. …