Pets are the interruption people mostly forgive, and the gap with children shows the objection is not really about noise. In YouGov's British survey, among workers who take video calls, 33% said having a pet in the room is acceptable in any meeting against just 7% who said the same about children. The all-adult toplines split three ways: Britain 24% fine in any meeting, 43% informal only, 24% never; the United States 26%, 34% and 28%. The distinction that does the work is whether the animal looks accidental. A pet in the room is treated far more leniently than a pet on your lap, where Britain splits 10% acceptable in any meeting against 41% never. Once the animal is in frame and being handled, it stops reading as something that wandered in and starts reading as a choice to stop working. The same logic explains the children finding: a child in shot is judged as a childcare arrangement, which is a verdict on the worker rather than on the interruption.