When I was younger, my family would go camping and fishing on our ranches. My dad loves being around all kinds of animals. He's the one who got me to be a really big animal lover. ↗
My mum loves cats so I took her to see the lion cubs which at about a year old are actually quite big. She wasn't scared at all and went straight over and kissed one on the mouth! She thought they were just like her pets at home. ↗
Freud's view is that all love is sexual in its origin or its basis. Even those loves which do not appear to be sexual or erotic have a sexual root or core. They are all sublimations of the sexual instinct. ↗