Yak snacks and Pawsecco

Seventeen years ago when our last puppy arrived Fishguard had a decent pet shop that supplied all his needs. Over the years it lost custom and dwindled in size which meant that today required a trip to the megastore rival that has been its downfall (along with online ordering).

Well! Who knew you could get doggy beer and birthday cake, treats made from Himalayan yak's milk, 'peamutter' and, alarmingly, 'duck tearing strips' (our next door neighbours keep poultry) among a panoply of other products that are marketed for our best friends. Raki was happy to hoover up some spilt biscuits; she didn't require a pastel-coloured puppy suit.

It's easy to scoff but we have to accept that we  have reached the  third stage of human-animal relations.  In the first, pre-domestic, stage animals were hunted/fished/captured as food, the main source of protein. At the same time they were respected, revered even, for their beauty, strength, speed and courage. They became totems or the focus of myths and rituals.
Then, domestication took control of some species for meat and milk, wool and leather, transport and traction, and others moved into the human orbit for the purposes of guard-duty and pest-control, becoming quasi-members of the family or clan as 'pets' in their own right.
Now, in this 'post-domestic' era, we have fur babies and emotional support animals,  we have dogs trained to assist and alert people with health needs, we have therapy with horses, swimming with dolphins and yoga with goats. We have  cats with YouTube channels and ducks needing airline seats. Veganism is massive . At the same time megafarms turn animals into units of production that never see the sunlight and our polluting ways have destroyed bees, birds and fish en masse.
Is this third era in human/non-human animal relations  better or worse than what came before, or just different?  I'm not sure. It's easy to make judgements based on assumptions that aren't proven.
One thing is certain, we could not have evolved into what we are except as part the animal spectrum as a totality. All evolution depends on the exploitation of resources.  "We" have exploited "them" and now they've got us making them Pawsecco.

(Some of my thinking here has been stimulated by this recent news item about the Maori response to whale strandings in New Zealand. Who has the right to decide what happens to whales?  Should they be hugged, worshipped or composted?  Or all of those?)