Pets and Family Relationships Among Nursing Home Residents

An anthropological study of pet visiting programs to three nursing homes reveals five aspects of how elderly residents deal with their past and present ties to their families. (1) Sessions trigger childhood memories and family reminiscences associated with animals. (2) Pet loss and human loss are spoken about as interrelated experiences. (3) Animal visits highlight and help counteract the decline of domesticity that people go through in institutions. (4) Residents explore their ties to pets they have had to give up and their relationships with family members currently caring for these animals. (5) The occasional visits of people's kin during pet sessions indicates the role of animals in domestic interaction and the reaction of family members to the situation of their institutionalized relatives. These findings are compared with other studies on the ties between pets and the elderly.