Yes, Kayla, the people have pets.  I have seen several people walking their dogs on leashes.  

I don't know about the boy to girl ratio.  I guess you're thinking about the effects of the One child Policy.  I haven't noticed that their is much of a difference.  And contrary to what we've been told, it seems that modern Chinese don't care whether they have a girl or a boy child.

The students seem to be very interested in American politics.  They have had posters (almost all Obama - see one of my pictures on the blog).  There was a funny poster where the kids had stickers and were apparently supposed to put them under either McCain or Obama.  It was overwhelmingly McCain, but it was also obviously fixed because you could see that someone had torn the stickers off the Obama side and put them on the McCain side!