The Dog–Guardian Relationship and Its Meanings: Perceptions, Expectations, and Impacts on Guardians’ Lives

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

<Overall Comments>

1. What is the originality of this paper? Could you make the goal of your paper clearer?
2. This paper does not provide analysis of the society/culture. If you argue that "sociocultural realities" shape the human-dog relationship, you want to add a more in-depth description of the "municipality" (lines 87-89).
3. When you think about human & non-human animal relationships, you may want to think about human dominance as the fundamental nature of the relationship. For example, Dominance and Affection: The Making of Pets (Yi-Fu Tuan, Yale Univ, 1984).
4. The concept of "affective labor" may be useful. Dogs provide "affective labor" in their relationship with humans. For example, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10371397.2014.928183 

 

<Minor Edits>

For readers outside of Brazil, you want to insert a map of your field site. 

Line 52 - "warmth"??? I am not sure what you mean by it here.

Line 61 - If you say "substantial body of research," you want to have more references here.

Line 138 - Are these 33 interviewees from 33 households?

Line 295 - "overcoming" I am not sure what this means here.

Citation of quotes (e.g., E35 or E21) - You want to say something like "40-year old male with a dog and two children" instead of giving numbers (E35, E21)

Line 459 - One Health Initiative (This needs a description.)

Line 599 - different cultures face dealth and care .... (You did not provide cultural analysis in this paper.)

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript addresses a relevant topic within the scope of Animals, focusing on the social and affective dimensions of the dog–guardian relationship and its implications for public health and animal welfare. The qualitative approach is appropriate for the stated aims; however, the paper requires substantial revisions to strengthen its theoretical grounding and overall contribution.

The introduction is too brief, and the review of previous studies related to the research objectives is insufficient. A more comprehensive engagement with recent literature on the human–animal bond and sociocultural constructions of companion animals is needed to clearly identify the study’s originality and research gap.

The discussion should be more carefully developed in line with qualitative research standards. Vague expressions such as “many interviewees” should be avoided or analytically justified.

The manuscript does not clearly articulate its scientific contribution beyond confirming generally known positive perceptions of dogs. In addition, the limitations of the study are not explicitly discussed and should be clearly acknowledged.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript draws on interviews with dog guardians in one Brazilian municipality to examine how people describe living with dogs—companionship, family-like bonds, daily routines of care, and experiences of loss, mistreatment, and responsibility. The empirical material is engaging and the themes are presented in an orderly way. I recommend minor revision, focused on clearer qualitative reporting, tighter analysis, and a small issue around participant identifiability.

First, the manuscript would benefit from a sharper fit between the framing and what the paper actually does. The introduction gives extensive background on domestication and general health effects, but the paper’s strength lies in meaning-making: dogs as kin, as emotional support, as moral subjects, and as sources of obligation and labor. The framing and discussion would be stronger with more direct engagement with companion-animal scholarship on kinship and “pet family” practices, boundary-making (“family member” versus “just an animal”), and the social expectations attached to “responsible guardianship.” This would help the contribution read as more than a general account of benefits and risks.

Second, the Methods section needs more detail on how participants were selected and recruited. The paper states that participants came from a previous study and were chosen through a type-variety approach, but it is not clear what the “types” were, how many people were invited, how many declined or could not be reached, and how the final sample retained variation across the intended categories. A short paragraph listing the type categories and summarizing recruitment/response would address this.

Third, the analytic procedure should be described in a way that makes the work traceable. Bardin’s stages are mentioned, but readers still cannot see how the team moved from transcripts to themes: who conducted and transcribed the interviews, who coded, whether coding was iterative, whether a codebook was developed, how themes were consolidated, and whether memos or another audit trail were used. Given the stated social constructionist orientation, a brief reflexivity note would also be appropriate (who the interviewer was, how the interview encounter may have shaped responses, and how the team dealt with that in interpretation).

Fourth, the Results sometimes lean heavily on long quotation blocks. The excerpts are useful, but several sections would read more clearly with more author-led synthesis. In particular, it would help to show how accounts differ and what those differences suggest—for example, “dog as child” narratives versus explicit boundary-setting; “therapy” talk versus accounts of cost or burden; and willingness to report mistreatment versus fear, distrust, or resignation. Shorter quotations paired with tighter analytic paragraphs would strengthen the argument.

Fifth, authors might reconsider the level of detail in participant descriptors. Table 1 includes exact ages, education, number of dogs, and interview codes. In a small municipality, unusual combinations (especially very high numbers of dogs) can make individuals identifiable. Consider using age bands, collapsing education categories, and/or moving the most detailed table to supplementary materials.

Addressing these points would strengthen the manuscript’s qualitative credibility and make the analytic contribution clearer, while keeping the core material intact.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I appreciate all the revisions (major and minor). They made the paper more nuanced and contextualized.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The revised version of your manuscript has been evaluated, and all comments and observations raised during the review of the original submission have been satisfactorily addressed. I agree that the current version of the manuscript is suitable for publication in Animals.