page_title: Human uses of mammals
section_title: As pets
hierarchical_section_title: Human uses of mammals / Practical uses / As pets
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Участники Всемирного Дог Шоу в Зальцбурге (Австрия)
context_page_description: Human uses of mammals include both practical uses, such as for food, sport, and transport, and symbolic uses, such as in art and mythology. Mammals have played a crucial role in creating and sustaining human culture. Domestication of mammals was instrumental in the Neolithic development of agriculture and of civilisation, causing farming to replace hunting and gathering around the world, and cities to replace scattered communities.
  Mammals provide dairy products and much of the meat eaten by the human population, whether farmed or hunted. They also yielded leather and wool for clothing and equipment. Until the arrival of mechanised transport, domesticated mammals provided a large part of the power used for work and transport. They serve as models in biological research, such as in genetics, and in drug testing.
  Mammals are the most popular of pets, with tens of millions of dogs, cats and other animals including rabbits and mice kept by families around the world. Mammals such as horses and deer are among the earliest subjects of art, being found in the Upper Paleolithic cave paintings such as at Lascaux.
context_section_description: Mammals are the most popular pets in the Western world, with the most kept species being dogs, cats, and rabbits. For example, in America in 2012 there were some 78 million dogs, 86 million cats, and 3.5 million rabbits.
  There is a tension between the role of animals as companions to humans, and their existence as individuals with rights of their own.
caption: Owners and their dogs at the World Dog Show, 2012
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