Pets have been the subject of many studies, and interesting titles abound. One of the most accessible and edifying is Katherine C. Grier’s Pets in America: A History. Susan D. Jones’s Valuing Animals: Veterinarians and Their Patients in Modern America is a fascinating account of the professionalization of veterinary care and the profession’s deliberate self-fashioning as guarantors of the health and welfare of companion animals beginning in the 1930s. Jones’s brief Death in a Small Package: A Short History of Anthrax is another exceptional work by this veterinarian-cum-historian, addressing a small but formidable animal other: Bacillus anthracis. Finally, deeply influential amongst historians is Yi-Fu Tuan’s Dominance and Affection: The Making of Pets, the work of one of today’s most productive cultural geographers.
Valuing animals : veterinarians and their patients in modern America by 
