Editing Pet (section)

=== Ancient history ===
[[Ancient Greeks]] and [[Ancient Rome|Romans]] would openly grieve for the loss of a dog, evidenced by inscriptions left on tombstones commemorating their loss.<ref name="thed_9Tou">{{Cite web |title=9 Touching Epitaphs Ancient Greeks And Romans Wrote For Their Deceased Dogs |last=Messenger |first=Stephen |work=The Dodo |date=13 June 2014 |access-date=18 January 2019 |url= https://www.thedodo.com/9-touching-epitaphs-ancient-gr-589550486.html}}</ref> The surviving epitaphs dedicated to horses are more likely to reference a gratitude for the companionship that had come from war horses rather than race horses. The latter may have chiefly been commemorated as a way to further the owner's fame and glory.<ref name="PodberscekPaul2005">{{cite book|author1=Anthony L. Podberscek|author2=Elizabeth S. Paul|author3=James A. Serpell|title=Companion Animals and Us: Exploring the Relationships Between People and Pets|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tSs2yV_F4n0C|date=21 July 2005|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-01771-8|page=31}}</ref> In [[Ancient Egypt]], dogs and baboons were kept as pets and buried with their owners. Dogs were given names, which is significant as Egyptians considered names to have magical properties.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt|last=Mertz|first=Barbara|publisher=Dodd Mead|year=1978}}</ref>

In the [[Old Testament]] passage in [[2 Samuel 12]], the prophet [[Nathan (prophet)|Nathan]], in order to indicate to [[King David]] the seriousness of his adulterous and murderous affair with [[Bathsheba]], uses the [[parable]] of a poor man's pet lamb being slaughtered by a rich neighbor who uses it to feed a guest. David, who had spent his youth as a shepherd and had compassion and affection for such a creature, becomes enraged at the rich man in the parable, only to be told by Nathan, “You are the man!” David, having been thus exposed as a hypocrite, confesses, “I have sinned.” This is one of the only instances in [[Scripture]] of an animal being kept for companionship rather than for utilitarian purposes, apart from the acquisition of exotic animals by David's son [[King Solomon]] for a menagerie ([[2 Chronicles 9]])