What is difference between pet and domestic animals??
Answers
“Pet” usually indicates an animal kept in or adjoining the home for companionship purposes. Pets such as cats and dogs are domesticated, but domesticated animals used for livestock or labor are not usually referred to as pets.
Explanation:
Pets are domestic animals, but domestic animals include all animals that have a history of being raised and bread by humans. This includes farm and ranch animals like chickens, cows, and pigs. It also includes work animals like horses and camels. “Domestic” animals, in my opinion, are different from “domesticated” animals in that they have been domesticated by humans for generations, centuries, or even millennia. Domestic animals often differ genetically from their wild ancestors through generations of breeding but not always. Being a “domestic” animal is a category/classification so it doesn’t require that they are living with a human. All horses, for example, could be considered domestic animals whether they’re domesticated or feral. Dogs are still domestic animals whether they have a home or are strays.
“Domesticated” animals on the other hand just describes animals that are being living with humans. Lions can be domesticated; in South Africa there are more domesticated lions than lions living in the wild. But they are fundamentally wild. They are separated, generally by less than a generation or two from wild ancestors and may even have been born in the wild. Anything can be domesticated. A crocodile, spider, snake, anything.
Pets on the other hand are domestic animals that we keep around for affection, friendship, cuteness, or for no other reason than we enjoy them. Whether something is a pet or not depends on the nature of the owners relationship with them. For example, a chicken could be a pet if you just own because you like it even if it doesn’t lay many eggs or serve much of a purpose. But chickens can also be domestic farm animals that are kept around just for the purpose of laying eggs or for their meat. These aren’t pets. Sometimes there’s a gray area where a domestic work animal is also considered a pet, like a sheep dog or a sled dog. Pets can also be domesticated wild animals. Lions, spiders, snakes, birds, even ants can all be pets. They are just characterized as animals that you keep around because they bring you joy.
A pet owner relationship is often characterized by the owner feeding the pet most of it’s caloric needs. So you there might be a bird that comes to your house a lot, they might eat from your bird feeder, you might even swear that they know you and there is a bond (eg birds like Crows can recognize faces) but they also get food from the wild. And mostly aren’t sentimentally tied to you or your house. So although they might be routinely around and you enjoy them, they are still wild animals or semi-wild animals.
Some pets spend are very independent and semi wild. For example, some cats go out and about on their own and hunt and even mate. I heard of someone who owned to huskies in the country and they would go out for days, or even over a week, and range for miles, and hunt for food on their own, and come back to the house. So they clearly were semi-wild. But I would still consider them pets because they are domestic (rather than just domesticated) & they have an affinity to the home and the owner (ie they always come back).