Look! It's a Pet!
So...is the snail named John, or is it John's pet? Would it take umbrage at being referred to as "it?"
This was a response on a blog post on the proper pronoun to use when describing an anecdotal animal which could be either gender.
The use of "it" as a pronoun to describe an animal in a scholarly paper is perfectly acceptable. While humans would take umbrage at being called "it" animals don't care a whit. It reminds me of humans who personalize spaying and neutering their pets. My late father, an otherwise intelligent man and the son of a veterinarian, would never get his male cats fixed because of this personalization issue. The animal doesn't care except for the initial discomfort from the operaton.
In my own household I do refer to my individual pets as "he" or "she," except for the snail I had for several years. That was an "it" because I believe that snails are hermaphrodites anyway, but even if they aren't, there would have been no way I could tell its gender!
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