Convivencia con animales de compañía en la cultura contemporánea, necesidades emocionales que los custodios reconocen tienen los animales de compañía, durante el confinamiento consecuencia del Covid19 (2020)

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to identify the emotional needs that, during Covid-19 lockdown, parents of children between 5 and 12 years old, custodians of at least one dog or cat, recognize in their companion animals in Guayaquil - Ecuador, 2020. Online surveys were conducted using Google forms to a sample of 1054 individuals. The questionnaire had Likert scale type responses, being 1 totally disagree and 5 strongly agree. The obtained results suggest that most of the emotional needs presented were recognized in both types of pets with a general trend towards primary or basic emotions. “Shame” was the least recognized among all and although dogs and cats experienced the lockdown negative effects, emotions such as “stress” and “anger” weren’t recognized to a greater extent by their owners. It was also evidenced that neither the age nor the sex of the custodians were influencing factors when recognizing any of the emotions.