Max is a small pet dog attached to his owner, in The Secret Life of Pets (2016). He is upset when his owner, a young woman living in a New York apartment, leaves for work every day and he is left alone. Max needs her. Max wouldn’t call their ‘relationship’ soul mates, but there is a bonding there.

The close ‘emotional’ relationship Max has with his owner is a theme borne out in Jurassic World as well.  In Jurassic World, bonding with a T-Rex is more beneficial for human life than abusing the human-T-Rex relationship. The consequences of abuse are disastrous to human life.

In The Secret Life of Pets the abuse of power reference is dumping stray animals in the sewer. Their owners abandoned their pets for the underground. When there is abuse of power these pets seek vengeance like the T-Rex does in Jurassic World.

When the human-animal relationship is not working properly, it’s dysfunctional. However, animals do benefit from humans and humans from animals.

In Secret Life, the dysfunctional human-animal relationship is borne out in the underground of New York. New York has a stray cat and animal problem. The underground sewer includes the usual animation exaggerations—alligators (remember the joke of the alligator in the sewer), a huge snake too scary for children, a pig, and even a vengeful bunny rabbit (voice work by Kevin Hart) and many others.

The question we may ask is why the owners abandon their pets when the idea is for human and animal to mutually benefit from each other. It seems to be the age-old answer. There are good and bad owners although we never see the ‘bad’ owners in Secret Life. We see what the owners leave behind.

If these pets had owners loving them with a child-like adoration then there wouldn’t be animals in the sewers.

In the movie, the abandoned pets seek payback on those who left them behind.

The pets’ reaction to becoming abandoned shows that pets respond to what humans do to them—in movie as well as life.

Humans and animals, especially pets, but not all animals of course, are meant to benefit from each other . When this does not happen and there is abuse or abandonment, something goes terribly wrong.

This movie is now out on DVD