I researched this when I first left around 2001, I was surprised because my extended jw family all had pets as did many jws, including elders. This info was much more in the 50's and 60's. Perhaps the WTS does not want jws wasting money on pets that they could give to the WTS and waste time that could be spent in the ministry and personal study (right!).
Edited
This article did appear in 2004 after I left. I did notice that most if not all citations in the index are from the Awake and intended for the non-jw public. No, those people have to be conditioned before they can swallow that WTS crap. Evidently, the ordinary jws are not heeding the WTS "suggestions."
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102004122#h=1:0-36:0