Owning a dog is influenced by our genetic make-up. Scientists have studied the heritability of dog ownership using information from 35,035 twin pairs from the Swedish Twin Registry. The new study suggests that genetic variation explains more than half of the variation in dog ownership, implying that the choice of getting a dog is heavily influenced by an individual's genetic make-up. Source 2n.
I have a dog. But my parents and grandparents never owned one. So unless it goes pretty far back, I'm not sure how much of this I believe.
I don't really get the twin genetic thing, but I can see the factor or influence of allergy and environment in owning a dog, as my understanding in history about the benefit of owning a dog for hunter gatherer, compare to farming culture where when famine strike, dog tend to be depicted as eating human hence their tendency to prefer cat for the benefit of farm.
And I do have own several generation of dog for the purpose of watch dog or guard house rather than simple pet, to warn against dangerous beast such as snake that tend to invade the house and of course most of the dog end up death due to the snake.