I've always wondered about this. I think it's also a trope called like 'anthro confusion' or something like that. xD

I guess rather than explain it, anthro animals could have their own feral pet people. Like a reversed universe or something. o_O

It's like how in Disney, Goofy is a dog and Pluto is a dog, but one acts like a dog and one doesn't. I'd like an explanation myself!

I actually had a long debate about this myself. What caused it was the use of horses for my western comic. I wanted my characters riding horses, but if I made the horses anthropomorphic it would cause other problems. There were ethical questions that would be raised about essentially making them slave labor. The other question came in about predator/prey. I didn't want characters murdering other characters on the street just because they were hungry. Not wanting to touch either issue with a ten-foot pole, I had to come up with hierarchy system for my world. After many many long discussions with friends I finally changed it that regular animals existed, and anthropomorphic animals existed. That the anthropomorphic animals would treat the regular animals similar to us. For this particular epoch in time that my comic takes place, the regular animals are simply there to be consumed.

As for the Disney thing, I've heard the official explanation: Goofy wears clothes and talks while Pluto does not, there for Goofy can own Pluto.

I talk about this with my sister a lot, case in point with Disney, Mickey mouse and Pluto while his best friend is Goofy. I tried explaining my thoughts on it and how it doesnt make sense and the response is always 'its just fake, its a cartoon'.

Its nice to try and find the logic behind this stuff cause really, it makes no sense, so its fun tot ry and find reasons behind it

What bothers you about it, specifically? It's the same sort of idea as humans keeping primates in a zoo, or something. However the humanoid came about, the non-humanoid equivalent can still exist and/or be domesticated.

It could be somewhat awkward/meta to see, but otherwise there isn't any conflict, per se, whether the anthros are an "evolved" or created species.

Or a human having his own pet monkey

This is not inclusive to most people, I'm sure, but it boils down to evolutionary branching. Primates and monkeys are evolutionary cousins just as we, as humans, are another branch.

In my worlds, however, most creatures are not directly anthropomorphized from an animal and rather have features of them and other animals.

This is, uhh, sorta unrelated I guess... but if you need to rationalize it, think of the anthro characters as the next evolutionary branch.

One would assume that the genetic makeup of a bipedal version of a dog would have some major differences. One of the differences might include a capacity for sapience, which is pretty much what we use to define something you can't have ownership over.

So if Goofy is sapient but Pluto is not (though I suppose we do have to debate that point, as Pluto does show some higher-level understanding of the things which go on), he can be a pet.

I think the other side of this is that applying too much logical thought to it is not a good idea. Pluto as a character is a pet first and foremost. Part of the humour is in the idea that he knows more about his situation than a real dog would.

It's a blurry line, I guess. :P