Futurity summarizes research from a Duke University doctoral student named Sparky Samantha Deffler. She explains that it’s because dog names have greater significance in families:
In addition to mixing up sibling for sibling and daughter for son, study participants frequently called other family members by the name of the family pet—but only when the pet was a dog. Owners of cats or other pets didn’t commit such slips of the tongue.
Deffler says she was surprised how consistent that finding was, and how often it happened.
“I’ll preface this by saying I have cats and I love them,” Deffler says. “But our study does seem to add to evidence about the special relationship between people and dogs.
“Also, dogs will respond to their names much more than cats, so those names are used more often. Perhaps because of that, the dog’s name seems to become more integrated with people’s conceptions of their families.”
via Neatorama
