Thesis (M.A.) -- Central Connecticut State University, 2007. / Thesis advisor: Sylvia Halkin. "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Biological Sciences: Ecology and Environmental Studies." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 29-31). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of English, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 96-101).

How are pets being used as status symbols to display social position and wealth? This paper seeks to theoretically examine pet owners and their use of animals to convey a message of social status, position and wealth. This will be done through an application of theoretical constructs by Veblen, Marx, and Bourdieu and applications to concepts of consumerism, status, commodities and distinction. While the human-animal relationship has been investigated in terms of the human benefits of physical and mental health, stress reduction, child surrogacy, loneliness reduction and more, there have been fewer investigations of pets as social status symbols. This thesis creates a more inclusive theoretical approach to commodities being used as status symbols. After a historical look at how the function of pets has evolved in relation to humans, the more inclusive theory is applied to real world examples of pets in modern affluent societies such as pet luxury items, designer breeds, market segmentation, and mass availability of those products.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, May, 2008. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2004. Graduate Programme in Psychology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 182-196). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:NR11599

Thesis--PlanA (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

This study was designed to explore the importance a pet can have on someone's life, including ways a pet affects the relationships an individual has with other family members. This study assessed how pets can be influential in people's lives, especially with regard to the cultivation of family relationships and the development and maintenance of emotional stability. The opinions of pet owners were reviewed with regard to whether they felt their pets loved them and considered a family member. Also evaluated was how a relationship with one's pet might have been similar to any other relationship within one's family, along with the extent one's pet added harmony or discomfort to family relationships.The following research questions guided this exploratory and qualitative study: (a) In what ways can a pet influence a person's life regarding family relationships? (b) In what ways can a pet replace or act as a beneficial substitute for other interpersonal and significant relationships? Specific attention was paid to how pets affect individuals in their family and various relationships between the family members, including the different roles the pet plays within family circumstances.An open-ended, 12-question survey was distributed to six undergraduate classes, two at Radford University and four at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Individuals identified different pets in their lives, and in some cases, described several positive attributes about their pets in the context of a personal anecdote about their pets and certain family relationships.The results of this study showed that pets are an important aspect to many families, and in several cases represent another "family member," or another "sister or brother." Pets often serve as a relief of distress for families by listening to verbal behavior, providing a best friend, encouraging family bonding, and acting as a protector. / Master of Science

No description available.

MA (Fine Art), Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, 2011 / The purpose of this paper is to investigate the figure of the pet in contemporary art. I will argue that the pet offers rich potential for creative exploration that challenges the conventional binaries of self/other, human/animal, and tame/wild in a way that tries to speak of a different subjectivity. I take as a starting point that the pet is seen as not other enough and this explains its relative absence in contemporary visual art practice and discourse. Currently there is a lot of interest in the animal within this field, but the animal is usually cast as wild or untamed – all too often functioning as a signifier of difference from the human (through this difference, of course, we define what is human). For all that the pet is an animal it does not serve as a signifier in the same way. It straddles binaries/boundaries of human/animal and even self/other in a manner that is often interpreted as ‘uncomfortable’. I will argue that the widespread prejudice against pets is based on a very deep seated and problematic formulation of the wild, and if the binary opposition of the wild and the domestic is discarded (as the binary opposition of the human and the animal was/is) the pet is more than equal to the same theoretical, and consequently practical, burden as the wild animal. With special attention to the concept of becoming-animal, outlined by Deleuze and Guattari, I look at the artists Jo Ractliffe, Carolee Schneemann, and William Wegman whose pets play a pivotal role in the production of their artworks, and in some cases, the trajectory of their careers. I contend that within this cross-species relationship/experience/void/communication (or any other description one might hazard to apply) something happens, an event, something meaningful, worth consideration. The very nature of a cross-species phenomenological, libidinal relating is, for me, laden with creative possibility. I argue that the pet has the potential to open up a creative space within which important and topical issues, anxieties and subject fractures can be visually manifested

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Kentucky, 2007. / Title from document title page (viewed on March 26, 2008). Document formatted into pages; contains: v, 36 p. : ill. Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 33-35).