Business Insider spoke with John Bradshaw, anthrozoologist and author of "The Animals Among Us," about how humans are breeding cats and dogs to look like babies and how it is making them suffer.
Mr Bradshaw said; "The human response to cuteness is something which has evolved as a way of making sure that we look after our own babies, but our species is unique in that our response to cuteness extends to other species as well."
"But it looks as though our response to pets and particularly to young animals like puppies and kittens has hijacked on the back of our response to our own infants."
"One of the trends we’re seeing in pet keeping over the past couple of decades is the increasing popularity of very small dogs and also dogs and cats with very squashed faces. Now all of those are characteristics which are also characteristics of infants."
"We have dogs, for example, pugs that have some of the characteristics of human infants, Chihuahuas have very short legs and are very playful, so although their faces are quite different they still respond to our “cute button” if you like, and there is also a fashion for flat-faced cats as well and all of those present welfare problems."
"The dog skeleton is not sufficiently evolved to cope with being squashed into these strange shapes and come to that, nor is the cat skeleton."
"So in particular, animals such as pugs and Persian cats with squashed faces have considerable breathing difficulties particularly as they get older."
"And so although these animals have tremendous appeal to the first time purchaser, those people who get those animals find as the dog gets older or the cat gets older, they’re faced with a lot of vetinary bills to get these put right and of course along the way, the animal is suffering."
You can find out more about John Bradshaw's book here.
Produced and filmed by Jasper Pickering. Research by Fraser Moore.