When Did Pets Become Pets?

When did animals or dogs become domesticated? How did that all come about? It all depends. Cats got into the United States on ships coming from Europe, and they had one job. Their job was to catch and kill mice and rats on the boat or on the ship. Then for about 50 years in the eastern seaboard cities, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago heading into the Midwest, cats were the primary sanitary workers of those cities. They're the comeback kids because now there's roughly the same number of cats.