Where PPPs Pick up Their Tendencies

I don't really know, but I would like to suggest a few options of what I think leads a person to be a PPP. The real question I am trying to answer is: Does being a pretentious pet parent get developed socially or genetically? I think both contribute to making good pet parents and people interested in being an advocate for animals. Examining myself, short of doing a survey, I am going to assess the evidence.

The social factors I shall explore first. In my nuclear family, the PPP tendencies were displayed. My parents chose to have pets. I grew up with them around me. Home does not quite feel like home without a pet. Family stories have also built this tendency. On the maternal side of my family, my grandfather owned a pig farm.

Early on, as a farmer he became close to his stock. He sort of loved them. I don't know how else to say it. He considered pigs very intelligent animals. Early on in raising pigs, he was rough with them for example trying to herd them onto scales to be weighed at sale. Later on, he discovered they learned his speech. He only needed to talk to his pig and they did what he wanted. He treated them gently almost as if they were his pets. Then, when he was herding them in to get weighed, he would ask each pig to come to be weighed. The people around him were confounded by this farmer who talked to his pigs.

My maternal grandfather also had a dog. On visits to the farm, we saw his interactions with the dog and how the dog participated in farm life. He was close to his dog who accompanied him doing his farm tasks.

On the paternal side of the family, my grandfather was a farm boy. He was particularly affected by cats and chinchillas. He had a home office for accounting. He shared his space and let these animals run about his basement while he worked. They were his breathing mascots. Anytime we visited, we were delighted to go down into Grandpa's special work space to play with his cat and chinchillas. With the cat, we would get a crunched paper ball and throw it in the air. With the chinchilla, we would watch them run around in the corners of the office and pet them. They would play hide and seek with the cat.

On my maternal side again, my mother had an uncle. This uncle was a pigeon owner. He always had an admirable pigeon roost. He loved each of his pigeons like it was a racehorse. He had tracked their times and their distances on charts. He had entered them in flight competitions. The love and care he had for each pigeon was easily traceable in his voice as he presented each one to me. For a time, he lived in Calgary and then, he lived in British Columbia. Both places, he maintained his bird collection.

My paternal grandfather had an affection for the Masters which takes place in Spruce Meadows. He loved horses himself. Both him and his brother rode them around their property as boys. My grandfather knew all the winners, key players, and great shows out at Spruce Meadows. I took him once. We had a good time. Later, he said he preferred to watch it on television.

All these social factors have led me to pick up similar affections for animals.

Next, I shall explore the genetic factors and the possibility of similar personality leading to being a pretentious pet parent. I sort of see personalities, dreams, and dispositions being repeated through the family lines. Unuttered hopes get displayed through their actions as if programmed. A love of music seems imbred. Crazy sorts of whims seem imbred including preferences for color. Desires to achieve flight or to work with flight seem imbred. This is why I expect, even if I don't know them and just meet a relative now, to have a lot in common with them.

I do not know what causative factors bring out certain personalities. I think there is a personality sublist in the genes with additional factors which turn them on or off. I think that all the possible personalilty profiles for a family are there and that only a few of them get expressed. This would explain why in a family there are such varied expressions of what seems to be a common database of personality factors.

Well, as both are possibilities in my mind, I hope that reading this blog assists in turning on the PPP gene tendencies in your mind. I realize I can only influence that which is already there in your base programming, and I certainly want to socially influence you. Who would have thought you could teach your pig herd to understand speech? My family believes that animals are intelligent. They are worth relating to. If you have not ever tried talking to your animal, start.

Last night, my Cat Dad whispered a little tip to Lucius that he would really be much more satisfied with his kitten food than our people food. Lucius must assess each new food in the kitchen to determine if he likes it. He is disappointed with some and feels excluded when we eat if we don't offer him any. The kitten was basically unsettled we were eating something different than him. Right then, after the suggestion, the kitten did exactly what Cat Dad suggested and went and ate two plates of his kitten food. Cat Dad's eyes lit up. Do you think he really understood?