This last point (in Part One of this Theme) – the changing landscape of pet ownership – refers to a recent trend in pet ownership: When I started off in the profession, pets were largely owned. Meaning the human would go out and get a pet. They would take responsibility for its feed, its health, its behaviour, and its housing. They would be the pet’s owner, and would make all the important decisions on its behalf. In this instance, you could say the human-pet bond was biased in favour of the pet. Over the last 10 or 15 years, this bias is shifting toward the human. Pets are increasingly seen as contributing something to the human’s life. Not just as a means of herding sheep, or as a guard dog. That was historically always the purpose of having a bonded animal. We now notice people are having pets for much more complex social and personal reasons.