Konnichiwa!

I recently submitted a poll, asking community members here what their favorite mammals were out of 5 different choices, and unsurprisingly, the results turned out exactly how I had expected them to.

In order to explain why each of the groups of mammals got the number of votes that they did, I figured I'd write this brief blog to explain a bit about (what I hypothesize is) the thought process of those who voted in it.

First of all, the poll was biased strongly in favor of bunnies, and yet despite this fact, bunnies only received 2 votes—1 of which was my own.

The reason for this is simple: nobody else who voted in it has pet rabbits.
(I suspect the other person who voted for bunnies is my BFF UwUQueen, BTW.)

Next we come to weasels. Many of you are aware that this poll was conducted in the midst of an ongoing conflict between weasels and cats, and yet just like bunnies, weasels received only 2 votes.

1 of these votes was obviously Flying-Mongoose, and the other was obviously another community member who has aligned themselves closely with him and has taken the weasel side in the ongoing cats vs. weasels conflict, but regardless, the reason why weasels received so few votes is because nobody voting in the poll has any pet weasels.

It is worth mentioning here that there are plenty of people who have pet rabbits or pet ferrets—the most common type of weasel people keep as pets—but there are far more dog and cat owners out there, which is precisely why despite being conducted in the midst of a conflict between cats and weasels, and having an overt pro-bunny bias, it was dogs—not bunnies or weasels—that came in 2nd place.
(Because people have been psychologically conditioned to think of cats and dogs when they think of “pets”.)

And that brings me to my last point: dolphins.

Like I mentioned in the poll itself, dolphins are far more intelligent than any of the other mammals included in the poll—which is quite impressive since bunnies, weasels, cats, and dogs are all quite intelligent animals—and yet they didn't receive a single vote.

The reason for this is obvious: dolphins are not (legally) kept as pets, and it is no coincidence that the 2 most commonly kept pets scored 1st and 2nd place, and the only animal included in the poll not kept as a pet didn't receive a single vote.

As a person who has pet rabbits and who regularly has to put up with >80% of the stuff in most pet stores being for dogs and cats, I personally find it annoying how other types of pets are oftentimes ignored or marginalized, and this doesn't just apply to rabbits, ferrets, and other “small animals” kept as pets, but also all pet birds, pet reptiles, pet amphibians, pet fish, and pet invertebrates.

So what do y'all think about my assessment of the poll results here? Do you think my “Critical Pet Theory” is accurate, or do you think there is another, better explanation for all of this?