In the Lyra's universe people have a daemon, an animal version of themselves. However do they also have normal animal pets (Cats, dogs etc) or does the deamon fill this role?
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3I've read all three books & can't recall any specific mention of a pet in any of them, howsoever, the existence of at least one pet species is impossible not to presume, dogs .. servants often have a dog demon (including some breeds not particularly useful for anything other than pets) & I've noted no fantastic or mythological demons .. so if there were no pet dogs presumably there wouldn't be any as demons.– PelinoreCommented Nov 25, 2019 at 12:32
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@Pelinore - the existence of an animal form as a daemon shouldn't be taken to imply anything about the relationship of the natural animal to humans in general. There's no textev that pets of any sort exist - but there's also no textev that they don't, so the question is indeterminate.– Jeff ZeitlinCommented Nov 25, 2019 at 15:50
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The existance of an animal form as a daemon should also not imply those animals exist in the world as anything other then daemons. The forming of a Daemon as a dog, and then people calling it a dog only indicates that a 4 legged furry animal that looks like a dog is called the same name in both worlds and for some reason can be a form a daemon takes.– Richard CCommented Nov 25, 2019 at 15:53
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3If dogs didn't exist in His Dark Materials, but the other non selectively bred animals do exist in that universe, dogs would be a fantasy creature to the people in that universe (which surely they would comment on for being odd versus the other real animals), and people would perceive dog daemons differently. For instance, it might not even occur to them that dog daemons were the same kind of animal, because they wouldn't know these are animals that interbreed, nor could they tell from the common behavior of dogs, when daemons don't act like that. So I think it strongly implied dogs do exist.– KaiCommented Nov 25, 2019 at 16:27
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1 Answer
Yes, the concept of "pet" is known:
The nurse, at Bolvangar, describing interscicion, says:
Your daemon stays with you, only…just not connected. Like a…like a wonderful pet, if you like. The best pet in the world! Wouldn’t you like that?
The concept of "pet" is apparently well known enough that it needs no explaining to a collection of children.
Moreover many daemons take the form of domestic animals, and the people in Lyra's world never indicate that they are unaware of dogs and other domestic animals. While children's daemons can occasionally take the form of dragons etc. (for example, in the battle between the Oxford children and the Gyptians) nearly all the daemons have the form of real animals. It would be strange indeed if dogs existed as daemons, but not as animals.
There seems to be no textual evidence of pets. Perhaps unsurprising as pets would not be permitted in college rooms. Pets aren't well suited to nomadic house-boats. and you are unlikely to have a pet in a militarized Arctic research centre. There are mention of farm animals (I remember horses mentioned in passing, but can't find the page now). And meat is eaten, so cattle seem to exist (even they aren't described in the text).
