In New York City you cannot walk down the street without seeing people walking their dogs. And while visiting most of your friends you may or may not have noticed that there is most likely a cat or two lurking around. People absolutely adore their pets and spend hundreds, if not thousands a month getting them the highest quality food, grooming services, and obedience training. Some dogs and cats are treated like royalty. Since when have we become a society that owns 59,926,000 dogs and 36,117,000 cats as companions and in some cases, spoil them more than our children? It all started back with animal domestication. Dogs are believed to have been the first animal to become domesticated. It is suspected that the domestication for dogs began around 14,000 years ago in Iraq, based on the evidence of  skeletal remain discovered in the area. Dogs evolved from gray wolves into man’s best friend. Dogs were used for manual labor and farm work such as pulling and pushing carts, herding sheep, and even rescuing lost people! They were, and continue to be, used as guard dogs to protect families or businesses from danger or thieves. Cats however domesticated themselves, extremely independent, and do not take direct orders from humans. They used humans for protection, shelter, and consistent food supply. In Egypt, cats were valued for killing mice and other pests that humans were not fond of. They initially were only produced and kept in humans’ lives to follow their commands and complete assignments to alleviate the workload. How on earth did they get from serving people to being our right hand men? Animals at first relied on us for work and food in order to survive, but in return we realized that we needed them for different matters: companionship. People began to seek deep companionship during times of war, famine, and animosity within the human race. During the darkest times, pets have been the entity that keeps humans together. Although they still help serve us as herders, pullers, and service dogs for innumerable tasks, they are greatly valued as emotional support or therapy dogs. Emotional support or therapy dogs help those suffering from mental illness such as anxiety or schizophrenia. Without speaking a word of English, therapy dogs, simply with their presence, are able to naturally calm and give aid to those with mental illness. This is done by the person either holding, petting, or being in the vicinity of the dog. Just recently, a labrador retriever names Kory in Lansing, Michigan was sworn in as an official courtroom dog. She learned tips and tricks from the same trainers that provided dogs to the USA gymnasts who testified against the sex abuse of their doctor, Larry Nassar. Therapy dogs help people to feel more open and gain confidence which is essential when testifying in a courtroom, especially where the defendant or abuser will be present. The idea of animal domestication was originally to use dogs and other strong animals, like cattle, sheep, and horses, to do the work for humans that they were not capable of and to save them time, energy, and labor. People initially only saw animals as pieces on our chessboard to protect and work for them. Animals were stronger than them so work became their only purpose. Animals have gone from our employees that relied on us for their purpose in life to use relying on them to function. We now heavily rely on animals for companionship. Some people like myself are brought comfort immediately by my pets’ presence and lighten up my darkest times when it seems like the world is against me. It seems that currently instead of animals working for us, we seem to be working for them. Animals have gone from pawns to kings

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