Anthrozoology

Anthrozoology

Details

In one of the first undergraduate programs of its kind in the nation, you’ll explore the complex and often contradictory relationships between humans and other species. You’ll study the good—how animals make our lives richer, more meaningful, and healthier. You’ll also examine the bad—the levels to which humans exploit animals to serve their own needs.

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About the Program

Anthrozoology is an interdisciplinary field that explores the spaces that animals occupy in human social and cultural worlds and the interactions humans have with them. Central to this field is an exploration of the ways in which animal lives intersect with human cultures. At its core, the field of anthrozoology is about understanding the incredibly complex and often contradictory relationships that humans share with other species. We look at the good—how animals make our lives richer, more meaningful, and healthier—and the bad—the vast levels of human exploitation of other animals to serve human needs.

Academic Overview

When you complete this major, you will:

  • Recognize the interconnectedness of human and animal well-being.
  • Have in-depth knowledge and skills from the biological, social and psychological sciences to describe and explain the interactions between humans and animals.
  • Acquire a high-level understanding of the role animals play in human society.
Chloe Jones

"The Anthrozoology program has allowed me to take classes that explore the many different facets of humans' relationships with animals, which are something that I've always been fascinated about. There are so many areas where humans and animals interact, some of which I hadn't thought of prior to taking classes here. The program has also given me the opportunity to train an animal that is often thought of by the public as untrainable: a cat."

Chloe Jones Biology & Anthrozoology, Newport, WA

Featured Courses

Browse all courses
ANZ 108

Survey of Animals in Society

This course exposes students to the many and varied ways that animals interact with human society to improve the well-being of communities, educate, sustain, and build social capital.

ANZ 231

Historical Perspective: Horses & Humans

This is an introductory course on the relationship between horses and humans in the outer physical world and the inner psychological world. 

ANZ 431

Equine Assisted Services

This course will explore a variety of methods for partnering with horses for therapy, learning, and horsemanship. 

ANZ 245 IW

Animals in Popular Culture

Animals in Popular Culture looks at how the use and representation of animals in popular and mass-mediated culture—in genres like film and television, fiction, animation and comic books, art, and the Internet—shape and reveal cultural values.

Hands-on learning

Student Fostering Opportunity

In the course of your anthrozoology coursework, you will have direct interactions with animals that will enrich your understanding and perspective of the human-animal bond—a bond you may choose to continue. At the end of every academic year, the many animals we work with become lovely companion animals for the public to adopt.

The Perkins Call Canine Center

The state-of-the-art  Perkins Call Canine Center serves as the home of the anthrozoology program. The Center includes a 2,600 sq. ft. canine training room, a 30-seat classroom, faculty offices, research rooms, a veterinary treatment room, wash rooms, and indoor and outdoor kennels.

Internships and research opportunities

You’ll benefit from internship and research opportunities with our partner organizations like Zoo Montana; Working Dogs for Conservation; Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks; and Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch. Through our work-study program you may get paid doing what you love—working with horses.

Canine Graduation

Our ANZ program celebrates our animals at the end of their training - they experience graduation and adoption into families or move into a specialty field such as scent work, therapy, or service work. 

See this news story about our 2024 graduates.

After Graduation

Upon completion of the Anthrozoology program, you’ll be qualified to pursue multiple career paths, including: animal behaviorist; work for a government agency with a connection to animals, such as the USDA, the US Fisheries and Wildlife Service, or other agencies; work at a zoo or aquarium with animals or in another capacity such as outreach, administration, or fundraising; and much more.

Anne Perkins

If you bought your pet a Christmas present … then you care deeply about anthrozoology. And I am so very proud that we are now offering that as a scholarly and academic degree, and we were first in the nation to do that.

Dr. Anne Perkins Founding anthrozoology professor, from her Tedx Talk

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