UW-Madison professor talks the sociology of your neighborhood pets

Jason Nolen, a sociology and criminology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, spoke at Union South Thursday about the sociology of companion animals, a topic he explores in depth through his social media accounts and his new course with the university.

Nolen created @cats_of_madison in 2016 after noticing there was no Instagram account dedicated to Madison’s cats. Today, the account has over 27,000 followers and features daily posts of cats that Nolen has personally come across on porches, at shelters and in people’s homes. The professor is also wrapping up his first semester teaching a new class at UW-Madison called Sociology of Companion Animals, a course he created based on his “field experience” with pets. 

“I love sociology, and I could talk about and read sociology all day. But not everyone feels this way,” Nolen said. “I think if you have a class that's about animals or pets, that's kind of like putting cheese on broccoli, right? It’s fun, because it’s pets, but it’s also a way to facilitate learning sociology, which I think is very important.”

Nolen offered a few sociological perspectives that he’s noticed throughout his near decade of pet observations. 

When he’s looking for new cats to post, he said he’s usually doing a lot of driving around town, moving through neighborhoods on foot or in the car in a way that could be perceived as questionable. 

“I look very suspicious, the way I’m looking at people’s houses and porches for cats,” he said, adding that sometimes he goes onto people’s porches to take photos of their cat. “But I’ve never been treated with suspicion. I’ve been doing this for nine years and it’s never been a problem.”

Cats of Madison is very important to Nolen, and he expressed frustration and sadness when observing that if he had a “different identity, this would not even be a possibility.”

“The police have never been called on me, and it’s definitely not lost to me that if I weren’t white, and especially if I were Black, I probably wouldn’t be able to do this at all,” he said.

Nolen pointed out that in most of his interactions with dogs, there’s almost always a person at the other end of the leash, which he said calls into question similar contextual factors that influence whether he’ll approach someone to take a photo of their dog. 

“I'm always very cognizant that I'm a man and that I'm usually a stranger to the person that I'm thinking about approaching,” he said. Nolen recognizes that while he may have the best intentions, his identity and how it might be perceived in society often make not approaching someone the better choice.

“That's especially going to be the case if the context would make me seem dangerous to someone,” he said. “As a man in a public space, and especially if it’s later out, I definitely get why a woman who’s walking alone with the dogs might be afraid of me.”

Nolen pointed out that he’s noticed while walking dogs, people seem to trust him. He added that research confirms that when someone is walking with a dog, they generally seem “more trustworthy and likable” than someone walking alone. 

Therefore, he said, having a lot of dogs — and people walking them — in neighborhoods increases social trust in general and will likely facilitate more social interactions between people. This can increase the effectiveness and ability of the neighborhood to function supportively.

Throughout his sociology of companion animals course, he often discusses anthropomorphism, which is the attribution of human character traits, behaviors and emotions to non-human objects, such as pets. People tend to prefer animals that are easiest to anthropomorphize, such as pandas, who are one of the most popular zoo animals because of their human baby-like characteristics, Nolen said.

“They look and act like babies. They have a very large head-to-body ratio. They look very soft. They tend to sit how a toddler sits. They are very clumsy. And they have those big black circles around their eyes that make their eyes look larger,” he said.

Nolen added that our tendency to anthropomorphize animals can sometimes be a bad thing, especially when it comes to people approaching other pets in public.

“If you're walking and you see someone with a dog, and you think, ‘look at that cute baby. I'm going to go right up to it and get in its face and talk to it.’ That could be fine, but you could also lose a chunk of your hand or your face by doing that. Maybe not the best idea,” he said. “So are dogs babies? Yes, but also no.”

Over the years, Nolen has formed partnerships with local cat shelters, including the Madison Cat Project. The shelter holds cat adoption fairs every other Saturday, and Nolen typically visits a few days beforehand to take photos of the adoptable cats ahead of the event.

Nolen said anthropomorphism can be great for human and pet connections because it can motivate people to care for their pets and ensure they are healthy and happy. And when writing captions for adoption posts, he’s intentional about the verbiage.

“Anthropomorphizing them is going to make people like them more. It's especially important that people like them when you want them to be adopted,” he said, adding that he writes captions that use the animals’ names and sometimes unique character traits to better connect with their human viewers. 

Throughout his time as both a professor and companion animal connoisseur, Nolen has found that insightful sociological dynamics have formed around humanity’s love for their pets, whether that’s a dog on a walk in the park or a cat perched on a neighborhood porch.

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