News – Sheridan Media
We love our pets. Across the United States, the pet industry is big business, with pet owners spending over a billion dollars a year on pet food, vet care and pet supplies.
Although people tend to view their pets a little different today, more like members of the family than animals, people have had some type of animal companions since the dawn of time. Many cultures have domesticate dogs for hunting and companionship, and cats for their hunting instinct to catch and kill nuisance rodents.
As these old newspaper stories show, animals have been important to humans for a long time.
While dogs, cats, fish and birds are the most popular pets in the U.S. people over the years have had many different kinds of pets, each with their own admirers. Rabbits, ferrets, snakes, lizards and mini pigs and mini-horses live with their human friends.
This from The Weekly Boomerang, January 14, 1897 talks about some of the more unique household pets.
FAMILY PETS ON SHOW. Chicago Gets Up a Unique Exhibition of Animals. Cats And Rats, Dogs And Donkeys Monkeys and Parrots Will Be There With squirrels and GuineaPigs and Many Other Queer but Interesting Favorites of the Household. Chicago is to have something entirely new in the show line this winter. In place of the horse show, which for some reason Chicago has scorned this season, there is to be held this month in the Panorama building an exhibition of household pets. It is not to be a merely a cat and dog show combined, but is planned on much broader lines than anything of the kind every attempted in the country before. Nothing in the line of household pets is to be barred, from mice to elephants.
Perhaps the managers of this exhibition are fully aware of the task which they have under taken when they agreed to show under one roof all the various animals that the people of a great city cherish as household companions. If they are, then they have to be prepared to take care of almost every member of the animal kingdom, for there is no ac counting for tastes in the matter of pets.
Just what is the average of people addicted to the pet habit it would be hard to guess, but we all know that in a great majority of homes there is an animal pet of some kind…..
There will be freak cats, too cats with extra toes and even one with five legs. One man who lives in Oak Park, Ill. is going to send in a box together his tortoiseshell cat and an old gray rat, which is the cat’s playfellow and constant companion. Prizes of silver cups and blue ribbons will be awarded in the cat classes.
A large number of monkeys, marine pets, squirrels, guinea pigs and even stranger animals will be entered.
One Chicagoan who is the proud possessor of two tame alligators has signified his intention of lending variety to the benches. If Dr. Eugene Texeria of New York could be induced to send the strange household pets with which his children amuse themselves a genuine sensation would be caused. Texeria is from Brazil, and the pets consist of a patriarchal alligator about 10 feet long, a big cobra who has been made harmless by having his fangs fangs extracted, a peccary, a big turtle, two monkeys, a porcupine and a cockatoo.
This is the first show of the kind ever given, it will be watched with interest in other cities. The Panorama building will, for the time being, be turned into a sort of Noah’s ark. The parrots will screech, the dogs bark, the donkeys bray, and all Chicago, especially the young people, will turn out to see the strange collection.
Today, many of the animals at the show are now illegal to own in several states.
Cats were not only furry, purring lap-warmers, but working animals. Since most cats are not particularly fond of water, it is unusual to think that many were used in the early days as rodent control on Navy ships. They are small and don’t take up much room on ships and were often considered in the much loftier term as ‘mascot.’
However, cats were not the only animals to be used as mascots on ships.
Natrona County Tribune, May 3, 1911 – Mascots or Pets on Our Warships. of the most interesting sidelights on American naval life, one that gives Insight as to the klnd-heartness of Uncle Sam’s blue Jackets , is afforded by the car and affection bestowed upon the mascots or pets on our warships.
There is probably not a single craft, bit or little, in the whole American Navy, that has not its mascot, and In many many Instances—particularly in the case of big battle ships – there are aboard anywhere from two to half a dozen pets that via with one another for the homage due a ships mascot.
The number of pets or mascots aboard ship depends somewhat on the good nature of the captain, for the commander of the warship has the say as to whether or not any prospective pet be allowed to find a home aboard the craft. Indeed, the naval regulations—that bulky blue bound volume which lays down the law for every thing in the navy—dignifies this subject of pets by devoting a paragraph to it. In this reference to pets in the naval book of etiquette it us set down that the officer of the deck (who corresponds to the officer of the day at a military camp) must not allow any pets to be brought aboard unless the permission of those in authority on the vessel be obtained.
However, it is only an exceptionally grouchy commander who ever makes any objection to the presence on board of any reasonable number of pets. ‘Indeed, many an officer with a natural fondness for pets, has come to have a genuine affection for four-footed friends aboard ship. More over, the presence of pets helps to keep the seamen contented. And finally it is just as well for an officer —considering the well-known superstitions of tars—to recognize that ancient tradition of the sea which declares that the presence of certain animals aboard a ship will bring it luck. Almost any pet having found a domicile on board a floating fortress, speedily advances to the dignity of a “mascot,” no matter whether the aforementioned pet belongs to one individual in the ship’s company, or is the property of the crew at large.
And in this connection it should be mentioned that there are several different ways in which a pet or mascot may find a berth aboard a naval craft. The most dignified entry to that made by the animal which has been specifically designated in advance as the official mas cot of a new warship, and Is brought aboard with due ceremonyat the time the vessel is placed in commission. Often such a mascot Is a native of and a donation from the state or city after which a warship is named, as, for instance, the handsome white goat which was presented to the battleship Kentucky by citizens of the blue grass state when that craft first went into commission.
One of the most remarkable tricks to the credit of any naval mascot Is that of a famous cat that was domiciled aboard the cruiser Chicago a few years ago. This cat would sit on its hind legs and “salute”with one front paw when the band played “The Star-Spangled Banner,”and any person who knows how difficult it is to teach tricks to cats can appreciate what this performance meant.
One legend about a ship’s mascot was the story of the cat on the Titanic. The cat had kittens on the huge luxury liner some days before it sailed on its final, fatal voyage. When ship docked at Southampton, before leaving for New York City, the cat carried her kittens, one at a time, back to the dock to safety before the ship set sail. Although a well-known legend, there is no actual proof this happened.
A few other unusual pets
Inter Mountain Globe, Hulett, January 5, 1911- Hot Springs, S.D., Dec. 30. — For a novelty pet and a bedmate a chicken is the latest thing to come under the notice of residents here. A Miss Archer, a resident of the Lower Town, has formed such an attachment for a pet chicken that she takes the bird to bed with her. The chicken seems to like indoor life and is contented to pass the night in bed clothes instead of on the roost with the other fowls. At break of day the hen awakes and by her cawing and fluttering awakens her mistress. The hen does away with any need of an alarm clock.
A lonely kid on a ranch or homestead might find a deer or antelope fawn and bring it home as a pet. Sometimes, after the deer is grown, the owner will fit the animal with an orange hunter safety vest to (hopefully) let the hunters know that the animal is a pet. However, that didn’t all work as planned.
The Upton Newsletter, January 13, 1911 – Deer to Have Monument. Katahdln, Maas. A subscription headed by New York sports men is being taken to raise funds with which to buy a monument to mark the burial plane of Ethel, the pet deer shot through the mistake of Bernard Morris of New York a few days ago. Morris saw Ethel running about the Silver Lake Hotel, a large bow of ribbon adorning her neck Morris evidently thought it nothing unusual to have a deer running about be-rlbboned and brought down the beast at the first shot. Mary Conners, pastry cook at the hotel, rescued Ethel from the bears when the deer was young.
Not content to just have one pet antelope, the fellow in this next story domesticated a small herd.
The Kemmerer Camera, May 29, 1912 – Leo Ball of Daniel Has a Domesticated Herd. We received a picture recently of Leo Balk of Daniel together with four of his pet antelope, all eating out of his hand. Leo last year secured several for domestication and has been been quite successful. The little animals seem to have have lost all of their wild instincts and are allowed to run at large about the home and are fat and doing nicely. They go out in the hills and roam with the wild antelope, but they always return home. The antelope is fast disappearing in the wild and soon the wild bands will be a thing of the past. The winter kill is enormous each year, and even with the closed season, which is now in force, they cannot last long.
Luckily, due to landowners and game and fish shutting down the hunting of pronghorn for several years, the herds did rebound, and there is a healthy pronghorn population in most of Wyoming today.
It is illegal today to have wildlife as pets, and if one finds a fawn or baby wild animal, it is best to leave it alone. If a person knows for sure the mother is dead, call the game and fish for advice.
We love our pets and have for centuries. So, your ‘fur-baby’ has a long list of pampered ancestors, be it a lap cat or a lazy dog.
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Last modified: June 30, 2025