Negotiating Relationships Within Multispecies Families: Analysing Dilemmas on Humanisation of the Bond

The literature indicates that companions are frequently considered part of our families.But, what does it mean?This article examines how the relationship between humans and nonhuman animals is defined within the family organization.We organized three online focus groups interviews, and the analysis was conducted using reflexive thematic analysis.The relationships with animals seemed to be based on four themes: (1) external limits (legal, moral, and biological) that frame the human-animal relationship; (2) participants' perception of their role within the relationship (e.g.caregivers); (3) characteristics perceived in the animal that determine her inclusion as a member of the family; and (4) level of humanisation understood from a two-dimensional model: according to the similarity between species and the balance between the needs of humans and non-human animals.These findings provide new perspectives on multispecies families and highlight unresolved dilemmas in dominant social discourses.