Do you use he/she or it for an animal ?

Huh. I just unexpectedly ran into a bunch of nuance in my head as I was trying to explain why it often feels wrong to use "it" for an animal. I'll see if I can figure out what feels right as I type. If you're talking about a specific pet animal, especially a cat or a dog, it feels kind of rude to say "it" in the same way that it feels rude to call a baby "it". If I was asking a stranger I met on the street about their new puppy, I would tend to use the gender neutral singular "they" (E.g. "awww, they're so cute, how old are they?") and I'd expect the owner to reply with the gendered pronoun so I didn't continue to misgender their dog. 😅 I think that can be true for farm animals too, depending on the circumstances. It doesn't necessarily feel *rude* to call other animals "it", but it sometimes feels a bit silly. Almost like you're deliberately being vague unnecessarily? Like, it feels similar to the way that we use singular "they" all the time when we don't know a person's gender (e.g. "Oh, I was on the phone to the doctor earlier" "Oh really, what did they say?"), but if you do know the person's gender it can feel unnaturally vague ("I'm going on a date with a guy from work tomorrow!" "Oh really, what's their name?"). You wouldn't say "oh look at that lioness grooming its cubs" because you *know* the lioness is a "she". Although I think it also has to do with how much you're thinking about the animal as an individual...? Like, if I write a sentence like "*if you see a lioness and you can tell it's obviously a female lion at a glance, you'd tend to call it "she"*" then (confusingly) it actually feels quite natural to use "it" in that context. 😅 I think that's because I'm talking about a general, non-specific lioness in the abstract.  And I think the closer the animal feels to being person-like, the more gendered pronouns feel correct, while the further the animal feels to being person-like, the more it feels like you're being too specific. Most bees and ants and wasps are female, but it feels less natural to say "watch out for that wasp, she's trying to get your beer" than it does to say "it's trying to get your beer" But even then, if you're *really* focusing in on the inner world of an insect, [like with a nature documentary](https://youtu.be/R-o6e57AEGo?si=OcxF98KgfdXJe6M3), you'd use gendered pronouns. I hope that's helpful, but I feel like it might just be even more confusing. 🙃