Rethinking “Pet Parent”: Language, Expectations, and Animal Welfare (#300)

A fellow veterinarian recently asked me why I object to the term pet parent.

It’s a fair question. After all, it’s everywhere: in clinic forms, consult conversations, pet product marketing, and social media captions.

But just because a phrase is popular doesn’t mean it’s appropriate. In fact, I’d argue that pet parent, along with its fluffier cousin, fur baby, is a misstep, especially for a profession built on science, ethics, and animal welfare.

At first glance, the term seems affectionate. Warm. Harmless. But beneath the surface lies a deeper issue: it reinforces an anthropocentric worldview and promotes anthropomorphism to the point of distortion.

It humanizes animals in ways that strips them of their unique identity as adult, non-human, sentient beings.

Anthropocentrism places humans at the center of moral consideration. It subtly implies that animals are only important insofar as they relate to us. As companions. As children. As extensions of our emotional world.

When we call ourselves pet parents, we adopt this lens, interpreting animal needs, behaviors, and relationships through a human filter.

Anthropomorphism, meanwhile, attributes human emotions, intentions, and developmental stages to animals. In moderation, it may help people connect with animals. But taken too far, as in calling a fully grown Border collie a baby, it can obscure the animal’s real character and lead to poor outcomes.

When veterinarians frame pets as surrogate children, we risk misunderstanding their instincts, behaviors, and boundaries.

For example, it’s not surprising that someone who acquires a Malinois, a high-drive, intelligent working breed, might be blindsided when their dog begins testing boundaries during adolescence. If they expected cuddles and compliance, but get destruction and defiance, frustration sets in. That mismatch in expectations often leads to behavioral referrals, or worse, surrender to shelters.

This isn’t just a matter of semantics.

Words shape expectations, and expectations shape outcomes.

If we refer to dogs and cats as babies, we may begin to treat them as such. Smothering, overindulging, or infantilizing them, rather than meeting their species-specific needs for mental stimulation, social structure, and physical activity.

There’s also a consumerist undertone to the phrase pet parent.  It aligns with a model of ownership driven by emotion and acquisition: a lifestyle purchase, a curated identity, a fill-in for emotional gaps.

The term pet parent prioritizes how the animal makes us feel over how the animal experiences life.

As veterinary professionals, our responsibility is to champion animal welfare, not to indulge in language that, however well-intentioned, might undermine it.

We need language that respects the individuality and adulthood of the animals in our care, and that encourages guardianship rooted in understanding, not sentimentality.

So, what are the alternatives?

Let’s start with client. A neutral, accurate term that underscores the professional relationship between veterinarian and animal owner. Guardian is another option, used widely in the animal welfare community, which emphasizes responsibility without the parental baggage. Caretaker, companion owner, or simply animal owner may also fit, depending on context.

Ultimately, language is a tool. It can bring clarity, or it can bring confusion. It can promote animal welfare, or it can perpetuate harm.

As a profession, we have a duty to model language that respects animals as the distinct beings they are, not as proxies for human children.

Let’s reconsider pet parent and fur baby.

Acknowledgement

This blog post was inspired by a post titled “Time to Reconsider Pet Parent?”by Mark Holmes that appeared on LinkedIn today. I thought that Mark Holmes' points were of sufficient importance to write a blog post on the subject myself. My apologies to Mark for the obvious similarities in the content of each of our posts. It seems we are in close agreement regarding the content, however.

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