Gadgets have become a part of everyday life. You’re likely reading this on a smartphone or a laptop, probably surrounded by a dozen other gadgets that do all sorts of things. While this has been all well and good for giving us a little more comfort in our lives, you may wonder what all these things have been doing to our pets.
Most of the time you might not even notice, it’s only when a cable gets gnawed or someone pees on the vacuum that the thought crosses your mind. But there’s a very real relationship that your pets develop with your gadgets. It goes way beyond barking and hissing at them.
It’s In Their Blood
First, the reason why pets can behave so strangely to technology is that their genetics get in the way. Animals are more susceptible to their million-or-so years of evolutionary instincts, so they’ll always treat technology as either a threat or a friend.
This relationship, however, goes a little deeper than just what their ancestors learned. Since the majority of the gadgets they’ll encounter are designed and used by humans, they’ll learn to associate gadgets with people with time. For example, puppy training is often conducted in clinics bristling with tech, which teaches dogs that tech is equal to humans, so tech is good.
Pets and Gadgets
So if our pets can learn to at least understand tech as we do, does that mean that they’ll get to use them? Well, in some cases, they already are. There’s a ton of applications that you can download to your phone that lets you interact with your pet. Products like automated feeders and chip readers make keeping pets easy. Just like humans, pets have comfortably adapted to tech—with the occasional hissing and barking.
That doesn’t mean that gadgets will be a focal point of their lives like our relationship with our tech. Pets are still animals at heart, and while they may develop a comfortable relationship with the Roomba, they’ll always trust their instincts above all. Evolution has given our pets more tools to live their lives without relying on tech and that’s something that we need to respect as responsible pet owners.
Cords, Kittens, Puppies, and Phones
As tech becomes more sophisticated and deeply enmeshed in our lives, we have to remember that our pets also have a role to play in each gadget that we bring into our home. And while the vast majority of trained pets can learn to live with the vacuum just fine, don’t be too mad if you catch them nibbling on the remote or pushing your phone off the table.
Like our pets, we also need to adapt to a tech-filled lifestyle that can accommodate our animal companions. The time where your pet can accurately text you what they want for dinner while you’re at work may be far away, but them understanding that blender isn’t a wild animal isn’t. For pet owners, it’s bridging this gap that’ll help both you and your pet function well around gadgets.
