In a shocking study released by Arizona State University on Monday, researchers suggested that your pets may not actually be children. The consensus has attracted criticism from pet owners and scientists alike, who have nothing else tethering them to a fundamental reality outside of the intellectually-vacant ball of fur waiting for them at home.
Steven Connor, a professor of animal behavior, spoke with us about the findings: “In recent years, we began to notice a growing frequency of individuals referring to their pets as “children”. At first, we thought it was a passing fad, but soon we realized that more and more of the population were sharing a similar sentiment. With that in mind, we set out to confirm, once and for all, if “Fido”, as it were, was anything more than a helpless domesticated mammal bred for companionship.”
We asked Steven if the study showed any hope for those who felt that pets were their very own offspring. He had this to say: “Not in a million fucking years. In fact, we found that the only thing separating your pet from the average varmint is the certainty that you will pay a substantial amount of your living wage to keep it alive; which often times is much longer than necessary, and results in years of catastrophic pain for the animal, until you grow tired of paying its veterinary bills.”
While Steven admitted that there were similarities between children and pets, he took the time to point out that “animals aren't human beings,” and that “they never will be”.
“For one,” he explained, “a human cannot give birth to a dog or a cat; believe us, we tried.” Steven went on to detail that one researcher on the team attempted the experiment for years until they discovered that he was just “really into that sort of stuff”, and was promptly removed from the study.
“Additionally,” he said, “we found that even the most intelligent of pets were still significantly less capable of operating in the real world than a child with a severe form of Down syndrome. In all of our research, we could not find one case of kids with Down syndrome being forced to fight each other to the death in an urban backyard for cold-hard-cash; it turns out they managed to escape their cages nine out of ten times, and the tenth only remained because he liked the taste of the metal bars.”
While the study has had trouble being accepted by the population at large, Steven stands by the findings of his team, and believes that one day “these fucking retards will wake up”.
In the meantime, he and his team has begun a new study researching the human body’s natural reaction to being mauled by a grizzly bear, and he is excited to reveal their findings once the bear has had its fill.
