Table 4.
Owners' attitudes toward their pets based on the Pet Attitude Scale (PAS).
| PAS item | Positive/negativea | Mean | SD |
|---|---|---|---|
| I really like seeing pets enjoy their food | Positive | 5.60 | 1.35 |
| My pet means more to me than any of my friends (or would if I had one) | Positive | 4.66 | 1.31 |
| I would like to have a pet in my home | Positive | 5.29 | 1.18 |
| Having pets is a waste of money | Negative | 5.13 | 1.47 |
| House pets add happiness to my life (or would if I had one) | Positive | 5.47 | 1.22 |
| I feel that pets should always be kept outside | Negative | 4.54 | 1.46 |
| I spend time every day playing with my pet (or would if I had one) | Positive | 5.07 | 1.18 |
| I have occasionally communicated with my pet and understood what it was trying to express (or would if I had one) | Positive | 5.10 | 1.11 |
| The world would be a better place if people would stop spending so much time caring for their pets and started caring more for other human beings instead | Negative | 3.65 | 1.36 |
| I like to feed animals out of my hand | Positive | 5.25 | 1.17 |
| I love pets | Positive | 5.74 | 1.15 |
| Animals belong in the wild or in zoos, but not in the home | Negative | 4.71 | 1.59 |
| If you keep pets in the house, you can expect a lot of damage to furniture | Positive | 4.00 | 1.53 |
| I like house pets | Positive | 5.29 | 1.16 |
| Pets are fun but it's not worth the trouble of owning one | Negative | 4.20 | 1.49 |
| I frequently talk to my pets (or would if I had one) | Positive | 5.36 | 1.19 |
| I hate animals | Negative | 5.51 | 1.49 |
| You should treat your house pets with as much respect as you would a human member of your family | Positive | 5.42 | 1.13 |
| Total score of PAS | 90.00 | 13.90 |
The PAS was assessed using the following Likert scale: 1, strongly disagree; 2, moderately disagree; 3, disagree; 4, unsure; 5, slightly agree; 6, moderately agree; 7, strongly agree; SD, standard deviation.
a
Direction of coding scale: negative means that the score was reverse-coded.