That’s enough pro-pet propaganda! There are at least seven things that humans do better | Emma Beddington

I like animals as much as the next woman. But even my favourite hen can’t mix me a martini

I am starting to think the international research community might be in the pay of pets. It’s not an allegation I make lightly, but have you been following companion animal news recently? First, research from the University of Kent concluded pets were equivalent to £70,000-worth of life satisfaction and wellbeing, roughly equivalent to the psychological benefits of being married. Then, in a Hungarian study, dog owners reported “greater satisfaction with their dogs than with any human partner except their child”. And now a survey of 31,299 pet owners reveals 58% of people find cats and dogs more comforting than people at stressful times, outranking spouses, friends and kids. It all feels a bit OTT; a bit, “Did a dog write this?”

Someone needs to fight back for human relationships, and it falls to me. This is not a position in which I ever expected to find myself. British women of my vintage tend to model ourselves on the late Queen, wearily tolerating humans but joyfully enthused by corgis and cows. In girlhood we fixated on guinea pigs or ponies (shades of Penelope Chetwode, who on becoming pregnant, said: “I wish it could be a little horse”); now we manage our menopause symptoms by acquiring and then lavishing love on rescue donkeys, a flock of homicidal geese or a goldendoodle with psychological problems.