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Tue 5 May 2026
Pets and their People . . . with CHARLES FOSTER
Why did we domesticate wild animals? Why do we keep dogs, cats, and even snakes in our homes? Do pets help us communicate? Can pets show us who we really are? Do we want animals as part of our families because we too are essentially wild and want to keep some wildness in our lives? What’s really going on between us and animals?
Charles Foster, former vet and barrister, now Fellow of Exeter College Oxford, and prolific writer, whose books include the best-selling Being a Beast, which describe his attempts at living like a wild animal, says this of his work. ‘Most of my books are attempts to work out what on earth we are doing on this extraordinary planet.’
In his latest book, Pets and their People, he examines the human–animal bond. Why do we welcome some animals as family, while exterminating others without a second thought? Might the wolves on our sofas be re-shaping us just as much as we re-shaped them?
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