‘Crazy Dog-Moms’? Gendering relational dynamics, carework, and pet parenting practices in multispecies Canadian homes

Social scientists have begun to consider the importance of interspecies relationalities in homes, yet, the field of family studies has largely overlooked conceptualisations of families as multispecies. This paper contributes to research contesting this anthropocentrism by recognizing animal companions as family members implicated within domestic relationships. Drawing on the findings of twenty mobile and placed-based interviews and nine digital/multimedia stories, we explore caregiving in multispecies Canadian homes, with a focus on gendered dynamics and parental parallels within relationships. Gendered dynamics identified as themes in our dataset entailed: dogs as protectors of women, women driving dog acquisition, women’s closer relationships with dogs, and gendered companion animal care labour. Participants adopted parental discourses prominently by self-identifying as mothers or fathers to their dogs, referring to dogs as their babies, discussing divergent parental roles within households, dogs’ significance to empty nesters, and dogs as replacement or practice children. Our findings illustrate the ways men and women engage in canine carework differently and unevenly and display divergent gendered performances of canine companionship. We contribute to growing work at the intersection of family and animal studies which explores multispecies households and care labour, positioning companion animals within kin networks and challenging dominant humancentric research paradigms.