Humans are believed to have a specific duty of care towards the animals they live with because of the understanding that domesticated animals have been ‘created’ by humans through breeding. What that care means, in terms of sharing the space and learning to communicate with individuals of another species, in order to create what can be understood as a good life, is rarely problematized.
Care – whether between humans or humans and nonhuman animals – is not only a series of predefined tasks. Rather, it is a complex process of relational encounters and communications, interpretations and tacit knowledge of what an animal is at any given moment in any specific space and, finally, an ever-evolving continuum of situational practices.