1. The Need to Love Animals
Why do we love animals? The question is as ancient as it is contemporary. Humans are thought to have begun domesticating animals roughly 15,000 years ago, yet the relationship was never confined to utility and management — it was rooted in attachment and empathy.
Understanding Through Attachment Theory
John Bowlby's attachment theory was originally proposed to explain the bond between infants and caregivers, but it applies equally well to human-animal relationships. Pets have been shown to function as a secure base: when owners experience stress, the mere presence of a pet provides psychological stability — a clear manifestation of an attachment bond.
Oxytocin and Cross-Species Bonding
Nagasawa et al. (2015, published in Science) demonstrated that when dogs and their owners gaze at each other, oxytocin levels rise in both. Oxytocin, sometimes called the "love hormone," is a neuropeptide deeply involved in maternal bonding. This finding suggests that a biochemical bond similar to the mother-child relationship exists between humans and dogs.
Notably, this oxytocin loop has been confirmed only between dogs and humans — it does not occur when humans raise wolves. In other words, over more than 10,000 years of co-evolution, dogs acquired the ability to emotionally connect with humans.
Evolutionary Psychology — The Biophilia Hypothesis
The "biophilia hypothesis," proposed by biologist Edward O. Wilson, asserts that humans possess an innate affinity for other living organisms. Our interest in nature and animals may have evolved as an adaptive trait — one that helped our ancestors gather survival-relevant information.
If this hypothesis holds, then loving animals is not learned behavior but a tendency wired into human nature. Beneath the desire to welcome a pet into one's home lies the memory of tens of thousands of years of evolution.
Our attachment to animals is a deeply rooted human need, explicable through attachment theory, neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology alike.
2. The Diversity of Companion Animals
When most people hear "pet," they picture dogs or cats. But the world of companion animals extends far beyond.
Dogs and Cats — Our Closest Companions
According to the Japan Pet Food Association's 2024 survey, approximately 6.84 million dogs and 9.07 million cats are kept in Japan. Dogs and cats form bonds with humans in distinct ways: dogs, as social animals, establish hierarchical relationships with their owners, while cats display a more independent temperament with selective attachment.
Birds — Sharers of Voice
Parakeets and parrots are renowned for their ability to mimic human speech. Large parrots such as African greys can learn hundreds of words and sometimes speak contextually. A bird that has learned its owner's phrases is, in a sense, "preserving" a fragment of that person's voice. When a bird continues to repeat its owner's words after the owner has passed away, it is a form of proof of existence through voice.
Reptiles and Amphibians — Quiet Housemates
Leopard geckos, bearded dragons, and turtles are reptiles whose popularity as pets has grown in recent years. They do not express emotions the way dogs and cats do, yet owners develop deep attachments through the daily routines of feeding and temperature management. Turtles in particular can live for decades, accompanying their owners through much of their lives.
Fish — A Relationship Based on Watching
The relationship with tropical fish or goldfish is grounded not in physical contact but in observation. The life inside an aquarium makes no demands on humans, yet its presence infuses a space with the breath of life. Research has shown that rooms with aquariums produce significantly lower heart rates and stress levels than those without.
Insects — The Educational Value of Beetles
In Japan, keeping rhinoceros beetles and stag beetles is a cherished summer tradition for children. Within a brief lifespan — an adult beetle lives only a few months — children confront the fact that living things eventually die. Insect-keeping holds significant educational value as a child's first encounter with the finitude of life.
3. The Meaning and Significance of Living with Animals
Welcoming an animal into a household fundamentally transforms the landscape of daily life.
Pets as Family
In contemporary Japan, over 80 percent of pet owners consider their pets "members of the family." Pets appear in family photos. Their names are printed on New Year's greeting cards. Owners celebrate their pets' birthdays and rush to veterinary clinics when illness strikes. This relationship diverges sharply from the legal classification of animals as "property."
Being recognized as family means that a pet's existence is irreplaceable. The reason "Just get another dog" wounds so many owners is precisely this irreplaceability.
Emotional Education for Children
Living with animals contributes to the development of empathy and responsibility in children. Daily feeding, walks, and cleaning up — these routines help children internalize what it means to take responsibility for another life.
Moreover, the unconditional acceptance that animals offer bolsters a child's sense of self-worth. Regardless of test scores or grades, a dog runs to greet a child, and a cat falls asleep on their lap. This unconditional acknowledgment of existence is difficult to find in human relationships.
Alleviating Loneliness in the Elderly
For elderly people living alone, a pet can become their closest social companion. Research in animal-assisted therapy has shown that interaction with pets reduces symptoms of depression and helps maintain cognitive function in older adults.
Walking a dog provides motivation to go outside and creates opportunities for interaction with neighbors. A pet's presence functions as a buffer against social isolation.
The Role of Therapy Animals
Hospitals, nursing homes, schools, disaster sites — therapy animals support humans in a wide range of settings. The benefits of animal-assisted therapy have been demonstrated in numerous studies: reduced stress hormones, stabilized blood pressure, and enhanced social interaction.
The very existence of therapy animals testifies to the fact that animals are beings who actively contribute meaning to human life. Simply by being there, they bring healing to the human body and mind.
Living with animals broadens the shape of family, nurtures children's hearts, eases elderly loneliness, and aids recovery for those who are hurting — at every stage of life, animals are by our side.
4. Facing a Pet's Death
Living with an animal means accepting a farewell that will inevitably come.
The Fate of Differing Lifespans
The average lifespan of a dog is about 14 years; for a cat, about 15. Hamsters live 2 to 3 years, goldfish 10 to 15 years, and turtles — depending on the species — from several decades to over 100 years. The gap between human and animal lifespans is vast, and in most cases, the owner is the one who must say goodbye.
This difference is a structural grief that anyone who lives with animals cannot avoid. Owners of short-lived animals such as hamsters and small birds experience loss every few years.
The Experience of Being Present at the End
Being present for a pet's final moments is a deeply affecting experience for many owners. Some animals pass peacefully from old age; others succumb after a long battle with illness. In either case, the fact that "I was there until the end" is known to carry significant weight in the subsequent process of grief recovery.
The Choice of Euthanasia
When recovery is no longer possible and an animal is enduring suffering, the decision of euthanasia may arise. This is one of the most agonizing decisions an owner can face. "Should I continue treatment?" "Is ending their suffering the true act of love?" — in these unanswerable questions, the owner must decide alone.
Thorough dialogue with the veterinarian, consensus within the family, and above all prioritizing the animal's own condition — the decision to euthanize is itself a confrontation with ethical gravity.
Explaining Death to Children
A pet's death is often a child's first encounter with the concept of death. "They crossed the Rainbow Bridge." "They became a star in the sky." Many families explain death through metaphor. However, developmental psychology suggests that honest, age-appropriate explanations help children understand and accept death more effectively.
What matters most is not minimizing a child's grief but communicating that it is okay to grieve. Through a pet's death, children learn about the finitude of life — and, precisely because of that finitude, the preciousness of every single day.
5. The Desire to Mourn and Its Cultural Expressions
When a beloved animal is lost, people feel the urge to mourn. The forms vary by culture, but the essence of mourning — remembering a being and paying respect — is universal.
Pet Funerals and Cremation
In Japan, pet-specific funeral services and cremation facilities have expanded nationwide. Many owners opt for individual cremation, place the ashes in an urn, and keep them at home. This behavior mirrors the process of a human funeral almost exactly and reflects the treatment of pets as "family."
Interment and Memorial Services
Placing ashes in a pet cemetery, setting up a pet's photograph and memorial tablet on the home altar, visiting the grave during Ohigan and Obon — in Japan, where Buddhist culture is deeply rooted, pets sometimes receive the same memorial rites as humans. Some temples even offer "co-burial" services that allow humans and pets to share the same grave.
Cross-Cultural Comparison
In the United States, memorial jewelry containing a pet's ashes has become widespread. In the United Kingdom, there is a tradition of commissioning pet portraits. In Germany, dedicated pet cemeteries called "Tierfriedhof" are established in every major city.
The forms differ by culture, but all are driven by the same desire: to leave a tangible record that "this animal was here." Mourning is the act of making proof of existence public.
6. Exploring the Life Cycle of Animals Through a Legal Lens
A legal framework is indispensable for sustaining a society in which humans and animals coexist.
The Evolution of Japan's Animal Welfare Act
Japan's Act on Welfare and Management of Animals was enacted in 1973 and has evolved through multiple revisions. The 1999 amendment changed its name, the 2012 amendment codified the duty of lifetime care, and the 2019 amendment dramatically strengthened penalties — raising the punishment for killing or injuring animals to "imprisonment of up to five years or a fine of up to five million yen."
This legal evolution reflects a societal shift: redefining animals from "objects" to "living beings."
Mandatory Microchipping
Since June 2022, microchip implantation has been mandatory for dogs and cats in Japan. Each microchip records a 15-digit individual identification number, functioning as the animal's "identity card." This literally means that the legal system now requires proof of existence for animals.
Reunification after becoming lost or during disasters, prevention of abuse and abandonment — microchipping positions animals as "identifiable individuals" within society, legally guaranteeing their dignity as distinct beings.
Pet Trusts
As pet owners age, more are worrying about what will happen to their pets after they die. A "pet trust" is a mechanism that, through a trust agreement, secures both the cost of care and a new caretaker in advance.
Under Japan's Civil Code, animals are classified as "property," so it is not possible to bequeath assets directly to a pet through a will. However, by utilizing the trust system, a pet's welfare can be legally guaranteed. This is an institutional innovation that seeks to protect an animal's existence beyond the owner's own lifetime.
Animals in Inheritance
When an owner dies, a pet is legally treated as part of the "estate." If heirs refuse to take in the pet, the animal may be left without a home. This legal contradiction — loved as family yet classified as property — represents an institutional challenge in the relationship between animals and humans.
Some municipalities have established programs to broker new homes for pets when their owners pass away. Caught between law and emotion, society continues to search for how to properly position animal existence.
7. The Experience of Pet Loss and Paths to Recovery
The grief of losing a pet is often deeper and longer-lasting than anyone anticipates.
Disenfranchised Grief
Kenneth Doka's concept of "disenfranchised grief" is essential for understanding pet loss. Compared to socially recognized losses — the death of a spouse or parent — a pet's death is often minimized. "It was just a pet." "You can get another one." Such remarks only deepen the isolation of the bereaved.
But there is no hierarchy of attachment. The depth of pet loss directly mirrors the depth of the relationship.
Approaches to Grief Care
Multiple approaches support recovery from pet loss:
- Verbalizing emotions: Through journaling or letters, putting feelings about the animal into words. Writing organizes emotions and brings the grief process into conscious awareness
- Rituals and closure: Funerals, memorial gatherings, creating keepsakes — establishing some form of "closure" aids acceptance of the loss
- Dialogue with those who share the experience: In pet loss support groups and online communities, empathy among those who know the same pain sustains recovery
- Professional support: Pet loss counseling is particularly effective when complicated grief develops
Time and Recovery
"Time heals" is partially true, but recovery from pet loss is not linear. Grief may strike suddenly months later, or tears may fall years after the loss. What matters is that there is no "correct pace" for recovery.
Psychologist J. William Worden's "task model of grief" reframes grief not as something one passively "gets over" but as something one actively "works through." Accept the reality of the loss, process the pain of grief, adjust to an environment without the deceased (animal), and find a new relationship with the deceased (animal) — working through these four tasks at one's own pace charts a path to recovery.
8. The Process of Coming to Terms
After parting with an animal, how do we find our way to emotional resolution? One answer lies in preserving records.
Photographs and Video — Records of Daily Life
Modern pet owners accumulate vast libraries of photographs and videos. It is not uncommon for the majority of a smartphone's camera roll to consist of pet photos. Yet digital data is fragile. Device failure, cloud service shutdowns, account abandonment — digital records are perpetually at risk of vanishing.
Voice Recordings — The Act of Calling a Name
The sound of calling a pet's name carries the most intimate dimension of the owner-animal relationship. The tone, the habitual inflection, the cadence — all reflect a one-of-a-kind bond. But voice disappears unless recorded.
TokiStorage's TokiQR is a means of proof of existence that etches audio onto quartz glass, delivering it 1,000 years into the future. Recording the voice of an owner calling their pet's name in TokiQR is an act of sending the bond between owner and pet beyond the horizon of time.
Proof of Existence Through TokiStorage
TokiStorage is a service that preserves human proof of existence on a 1,000-year scale, but its scope is not limited to humans. Including pet photographs in family records, inscribing a pet's name as part of the family tree, etching the sound of an owner speaking to their pet — all of this is technically possible and already being realized.
Preserving records holds significant meaning in the process of coming to terms with loss. The very act of "having preserved" becomes a handhold for accepting loss and moving forward. Even when I am gone, the fact that this animal existed will not vanish — that assurance becomes a source of strength for transcending grief.
The Connection to Pearl Soap
Pearl Soap is a bar of soap born from the proof of existence of a beloved dog named Pearl. The message "Thank you for being here," embedded in a paw-shaped soap, runs through every facet of human-animal coexistence explored in this essay.
Loving an animal, living together, being present at the end, mourning, grieving, and preserving records — at the starting point of this entire process lies nothing other than gratitude for the fact that "you were here." The paw of Pearl Soap gives that gratitude physical form, and TokiStorage's proof of existence is the means of delivering that gratitude to a future 1,000 years hence.
Preserving a record is a final gift to a being we have lost, and a guiding light for those who remain to look ahead.
To live with animals is to accept both joy and farewell.
But when there exists a means to record "this being was here" and deliver it to the future,
the pain of parting transforms, ever so slightly, into light.