Important discovery! In Assassins Creed: Shadows there are lots of animals you cannot pet (something that irks me because yes, I do want to pet them all). But when you add BABY animals to your village, many of them are actually pettable! Have so far discovered that the baby fox, tanuki, and piglet are pettable-critters!
Still want to pet my cows and am disappointed that I cannot, and am now hitting up against another annoyance: the item limit for placing animals is WAY too low, so you can't actually have one of each kind at your village all at the same time! But the discovery that I could pet the fox kit (and that the animation has it nibble on your finger when you do) was pretty great!