晚飯后在小區散步，總能看到很多寵物家庭的成員也在散步，小貓、小狗居多。有時候小狗淘氣跑遠了，主人就會特別親切地喊：“寶寶，快回媽媽這兒來！”這樣的情況好像在全世界都比較普遍了，所以英語里面也就出現了對應的說法，管這些被當成孩子來養的寵物叫fur kid。

Fur kid refers to a pet treated as though it were one's child.

寵物孩子（fur kid）指被主人當成孩子來對待的寵物。

The term fur kid, of course, takes people beyond the treatment of the animal as a mere companion and into the realm of surrogate kid-hood. Now the animal guardians can apply their hyper-parenting skills to their dogs, cats, and other four-legged members of the family.

“Fur kid”這個說法的出現使得人們對這些動物的態度不再限于“伙伴”這個層面，而是進入到了讓寵物代替孩子的階段。如今，動物衛士們可以把他們超強的育兒技能用在他們的貓貓狗狗以及其他四條腿的家庭成員身上了。

That some of them are doing this is further evidenced by the fact that a number of synonyms for fur kid exist, including fur baby and fur child.

像fur baby、fur child等與fur kid類似表達的大量出現說明很多寵物主人們都在把動物當成孩子來養。

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（英語點津 Helen 編輯）

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