From Wolf to Chiauau

While mankind has certainly exerted control over animals for personal benefit, such as agriculture, where do pets fit in? Do we have a propensity for dominations or have such practices stem from emotional attachment? Indeed, why do we keep pets and how have they evolved to fill emotional voids in our lives? We have altered animals so much via domestication that for a goodly percentage, survival is impossible without a caregiver. Such alterations then surely give mankind a responsibility care for such creatures. How did we ever from wolf to chiauau? And yet we use and abuse animals, maltreating them until they are no more than a carcass to be consume and cast away. While the ethics of meat consumption is another issue, animals should not be maltreated as they are. Our abuse of creatures is merely a symptom of the sickness so society.