Blog Post Five - Final Post

During this class, many important issues have been discussed in detail and brought to the attention of students who will hopefully be able to impact how animals are thought of and treated in the future. These topics ranged from the human animal bond to the media bias towards pit bulls to the problems that arise from keeping exotic animals as pets. While all of these topics were interesting to learn about, the topics that had the most impact for me personally were animal ethics and the modern animal rights movement. These two specific topics have always been important to me and it was enjoyable to have the opportunity to learn about them in-depth.

                Animal ethics can be a tricky subject. It brings up many questions about the amount of rights that nonhuman animals deserve compared to humans and in what ways they are similar to and different from humans. A point that is brought up in the All Animals are Equal reading is that of women gaining the right to vote. Women did not always have this right, but it was eventually

determined that women are cognitively similar enough to men that they should be granted the right to vote. However, a dog is not able to understand the significance of voting and therefore should not be granted that specific right. So, although it can definitely be argued that nonhuman animals need more rights than they currently have, they do not need to have all of the rights that humans do. There are three main animal ethical theories. The indirect theory is the belief that animals are not sentient and can be used by humans however we wish. This theory completely reduces animals to property and only argues that we should not mindlessly harm animals because it will lead to cruelty to other humans. The direct but unequal theory argues that nonhuman animals deserve some moral standing, but not more than humans. This theory states that it is wrong to harm animals for the animals’ own sake because they are sentient beings, but they do not deserve more rights than humans. The moral equality theory argues that animals and humans have equal moral standing. It denies the special qualities that the other theories give to humans. There is also the utilitarianism movement started by Peter Singer that focusses on the “greatest good for the greatest number”. This movement focusses on interests instead of individuals and takes into account the pleasure and suffering of animals. However, nonhuman animals are not given equal treatment to humans because although we both experience pleasure and suffering, we are different in many ways as well. Singer believes that we should extend full moral status to animals, but does not consider himself as supporting animal “rights”. The idea of speciesism was coined by Richard Ryder and describes the idea that different rights are assigned based on species. The truth is that as far as we know at this moment, no nonhuman animals have exactly the same level of cognitive ability as humans. Therefore, in my opinion, animals should be given some rights and their pain and pleasure should definitely be taken into consideration, but they do not require the full set of rights that humans are given. This issue was impactful for me because it is important to me that all animals used by humans in some way are treated as well as they can be given the circumstances of how they are used.

                The modern animal rights movement was also a topic that was impactful for me to learn about. Before I got to college, I always considered myself someone who supported animal rights. However, now that I have more of an understanding of what this movement entails, I would definitely say that I support animal welfare over animal rights. Animal welfare is concerned with the treatment of animals that are being used for human benefit. Animal rights involve concern with the

use of animals by humans at all. The ASPCA, American Humane Association, and HSUS are all animal welfare organizations. They make sure that animals being used by humans are treated humanely. PETA is an animal rights organization. They wish to abolish the use of animals by humans entirely, including pet ownership. Towards the mid-1900s, people began to become concerned with the treatment of animals by humans. A lot of it was still very inhumane such as live vivisections being performed as experiments because some people believed that animals could not feel pain. Towards this time, laws were passed to ensure that slaughter was as humane as possible, that pets could not be stolen for research and that research animals were treated well, and that animals in danger of extinction were protected.  In the 1980s, animal rights became a new trend. It was more confrontational and attention grabbing than anything that had been done to protect animals before. Meanwhile, the animal welfare movement began to gain more credibility as scientists began to support it and provide evidence to back up claims. The animal rights movement tended to focus on getting as much attention as possible by staging protests (some of them violent), and doing undercover investigations leading to “ag-gag laws” which attempted to prevent those raising animals for food from being able to do their jobs.

PETA was founded in 1980 by Ingrid Newkirk and Alex Pacheco and set the standard for the investigative approach. In the Silver Springs Monkeys case of 1981, they revealed abuse and neglect to research animals, causing changes to the Animal Welfare Act and gaining them national attention. Since then, PETA has continued to do illegal undercover investigations and stage dramatic and sometimes offensive protests and ads to further their cause of abolishing all use of animals by humans. Some animal rights movements are less extreme, such as the Animal Legal Defense Fund which focusses on making animals more than property under the law. Others such as Compassion Over Killing wish to abolish industrialized farming practices even though they have been shown to be safer for the animals than free range farming. The Animal Liberation Front is another animal rights movement which uses violent, direct action like breaking into labs and setting animals free. They have been named a domestic terrorist group, and many believe that they are associated with PETA. Overall, this subject was impactful for me because learning about what the animal rights movement actually is has caused me to reject the vast majority of what it stands for.

                Ultimately, the entirety of this course was extremely interesting and the information I’ve learned will stick with me in years to come. These were just a couple of the subjects we learned about that had the most impact on me personally.

Blog Post Four - Dangerous Dogs Over History, and the Pit Bull Issue Today

Over the course of human history, there have been many breeds of dog that at one time or another were considered dangerous. The particular dog breeds that are considered to be dangerous change with the times, and some would be considered laughable to most people today. However, the media continues to portray certain breeds as dangerous, and we often accept this as truth without a second thought. As a result, many people fear these breeds, and there are many of these dogs in shelters because they are less likely to be adopted. The breed that is painted in the most negative light at the moment is the pit bull.

                One of the first dogs to be recorded as being dangerous was the bloodhound in the 1800s. There were many attacks by bloodhounds in the 1800s, but very few after this time period. Upon

closer examination, it seems that many owners neglected and chained their bloodhounds and even abused them to promote aggression. In the book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, characters were chased by bloodhounds and live bloodhounds were even used in a theatrical production to chase after the actors. After these incidences, there was an increase in reported bloodhound attacks. Several other dogs were considered dangerous in the 19^th century. These included newfoundlands which were used as guard dogs, under socialized and sometimes part wolf northern sled dogs, mastiff-type guard dogs, and collie dogs. Interestingly, collie dogs were involved in attacks in the 1800s, but their public reputation was saved by the Lassie stories. German shepherds were demonized in the 1920s despite the fact that there was not a high incidence of attacks. The media chose to focus on attacks on livestock by German shepherds and people began to believe they were closely related to wolves, resulting in the first breed ban in Australia in 1929. The reputation of German shepherds was saved by Rin Tin Tin, a famous movie dog, as well as heroic acts by police dogs and the fact that the first seeing-eye dog was a German shepherd. The next breed to be painted in a negative light by the media was the Doberman. This breed tended to be associated with Nazi SS guard dogs. There was also a myth that their skulls did not grow large enough, causing their brains to explode which lead to the dog attacking. In the 1980s and 1990s, Rottweilers and pit bulls became the new popular “dangerous” dog breeds, due to dog fighting busts involving these dogs being highly covered by the media. An article in Sports Illustrated called even more attention to pit bulls, and created the myth that their jaws have the ability to lock when they bite. The same article also claimed that people were being attacked by “family” pit bulls when the reality of the situation was that pit bulls involved in attacks towards humans were usually

chained guard dogs with little socialization. As a result, pit bulls became more popular among people who wanted them for the wrong reasons such as dog fighting or simply intimidation. The CDC report is also commonly used to demonize certain breeds, particularly pit bulls. However, the CDC has stated that their study is not reliable. It is biased because they only used media reports, breeds were misidentified, the function of the dog involved in an attack was often unknown, socialization level and reproductive status were often unknown, and circumstances of the attack were often unknown.

                Currently, pit bulls are the dog of choice to be painted in a negative light by the media. It is often said that the breed as a whole is dangerous, despite the fact that pit bull type dogs are not even all one breed. They are often identified as pit bulls based solely on physical traits resulting in a lot of inaccuracy. Furthermore, if a dog happens to attack someone, the media is much more likely to widely broadcast the story or at least to mention the breed if the dog involved was a pit bull type dog. Many different breeds of dogs are involved in attacks on humans, but the media chooses to focus almost exclusively on pit bull attacks, cultivating a widespread and irrational fear of the breed. Pit bulls that have attacked people are almost always identified as “family pets” that mysteriously and suddenly became aggressive despite the fact that many of them are chained dogs that live outside and away from people. Many of them are also trained to be guard dogs, but guard dogs can only tell the difference between familiar and unfamiliar people, not “good” people and “bad” people. This often results in unfamiliar children that came too close to the dogs’ territory being

attacked, and the dog is painted in a negative light even if it was only doing what it was trained to do. The reality of dog attacks on humans is that any individual dog of any breed has the potential to be dangerous, but there is no breed that is inherently dangerous. As it is stated on the Peace for Pits website, “there truly are no bad dogs, just people who teach them the wrong type of behaviors.” It is also a reality that for any animal to become domesticated, only the most gentle and friendly towards humans of the species can be bred. In Belyaev’s fox breeding experiment, wild foxes became domesticated fairly quickly when only the most docile foxes were bred with one another. This example can be applied to dogs as a whole since they are likely descended from the friendliest wolves. Every existing breed of dog has already been successfully domesticated and is predisposed to love people unless they are taught the wrong behaviors or mistreated by their owners.

                It is truly a shame that any breed of dog has ever been demonized by the media due to rare incidents where not all of the details are clear. It is also a shame that there are so many pit bulls filling America’s shelter system due to a media-induced bias against the breed. Hopefully, the majority of people will someday realize that there is no specific breed of dog that is inherently dangerous.

Blog Post Three - What is True Euthanasia?

Nathan Winograd is a major advocate for the “No Kill” Movement in America. The No Kill Movement is the idea that animals in shelters should not be euthanized, especially if they are physically healthy and have no behavioral problems that could prevent them from being adopted. Winograd spreads the idea that pet overpopulation is a myth despite the fact that there are so many animals in shelters that many adoptable animals do have to be euthanized. He also chooses not to address the problems that sometimes come with no-kill sheltering such as warehousing, the mental and emotional well-being of long term residents of shelters, and animal hoarding. While it would be nice for all healthy, adoptable animals in shelters until they are adopted, this view is far too idealistic with the current issue of pet overpopulation. In his blog post, What is True Euthanasia?, Winograd discussed why he firmly believes that euthanasia is rarely or never merciful even in the case of animals that are ill and beyond hope of saving.

In his blog post, Winograd discussed his late cat, Gina, who was diagnosed with cancer and compared her to his wife’s uncle, Steve, who was diagnosed with cancer around the same time. Both Gina and Steve received aggressive treatment for their cancer in an attempt to save their lives, and both ultimately passed away. Steve lived out the end of his days in hospice care, pain-free and in as much comfort as could be provided for him in his state. Winograd and his wife planned to let Gina die naturally until she got to the point where she no longer wanted to get up, was urinating and defecating on herself, no longer enjoyed being petted, and was being kept alive by fluids when she would’ve otherwise died of dehydration weeks before. Even when his cat was in this much obvious discomfort, Winograd did not want to acknowledge that choosing to have her euthanized may have been an act of mercy. He believed that letting her die naturally no matter what the circumstances was the merciful path and simply referred to the euthanasia as killing and not “killing out of mercy”. He tried to draw parallels between Gina and Steve without acknowledging the fact that they were both on painkillers but Gina was in obvious discomfort while Steve was “pain-free”. Cats are very good at hiding their discomfort, so when it comes to the point where they are reluctant to move and don’t enjoy things they used to, something is very wrong. Steve could also make the conscious decision to die naturally in hospice care, but natural death of some sort is the only option for the vast majority of people with fatal illnesses due to federal laws. Animals can’t let us know what their decision is, so sometimes we have to recognize that we know our pets well enough to know when they no longer enjoy being alive and when euthanasia may be merciful.

Although it was only touched on briefly in a couple of places, Winograd’s blog post is obviously alluding to the fact that many animals that enter the shelter system in America are euthanized and his belief that this is almost always wrong. However, life in a no kill shelter may not always be the best option for animals. For instance, some no-kill shelters may be reluctant to turn away any animals that are brought to them which can result in warehousing, or animals being kept in substandard conditions due to lack of shelter space. Rarely, no-kill shelters can be fronts for hoarding situations where the animals will not be euthanized but they will be kept in deplorable conditions. Some animals will be considered less adoptable than others by potential adopters and may never be brought to a real home. Shelters are ultimately meant for short-term housing and are not equipped to meet the long-term needs of most animals. Many animals develop stereotypic behaviors to help cope with the stress of a shelter environment. They are housed in small cages and there are often times far too many animals for each of them to receive the affection and socialization they need in order to thrive. Dogs can go “kennel-crazy”, and cats will feign sleeping due to stress from loud noises and lack of places to hide so that potential adopters can see them clearly. The very first sentence of Excerpt: The Emotional Lives of Animals is, “Many animals display their feelings openly, publicly, for anyone to see.” Stereotypic behaviors are an open display of negative emotional and mental welfare in animals in shelters, and no animal deserves a lifetime of the stress of living in a shelter if it is not adopted. The article goes on to mention how ethics must be considered when we acknowledge that animals do have emotions. In some cases, the euthanasia of an otherwise healthy and adoptable animal may be ethical if it has been living in a shelter long enough to clearly display signs of poor mental and emotional well-being.

While it would be ideal for every companion animal to live a long healthy life and die of natural causes, that idea is just not plausible. Often times, it really is more merciful to euthanize a terminally ill animal instead of letting it live out the end of its days, in pain and no longer enjoying life in the least. When it comes to shelters, pet overpopulation is a very real problem and homes cannot be found for every single animal. While it is a shame that some animals that have fixable problems like minor behavioral issues are euthanized quickly, there are cases where the euthanasia of a healthy animal is more merciful than other options. Life or even just a long period of time in a shelter can be very mentally and emotionally tolling for some animals and some no-kill shelters are run below the standards of some “kill” shelters due to limited money and resources. There are some situations in which euthanasia is the most humane option, even when it comes to the shelter system.

Blog Post Two - It's Time to Re-Evaluate Our Relationship with Animals

Humans and animals have always had a relationship of some sort with one another. It began as hunting each other, evolved with the start of domestication, and has evolved even further with animals being used and even manufactured for human purposes like factory farming or lab animals. Our relationship with animals has evolved greatly since we first began to interact with them, and laws regarding the protection of animals were eventually put into place. However, some people feel that animals should be given more rights than they are currently allotted by law. Our relationship with animals is very complex due to the fact that we do not view them all equally to one another or ourselves, and therefore we can not necessarily give the same rights to every species of animal or the same rights to animals that we give to humans, although animals could be better protected in some situations.



One of the first topics covered in Bisgould’s TED talk is the idea of animal suffering. She states that laws that condemn unnecessary animal suffering sound impressive, but they really do nothing to protect animals. They create the idea that some suffering is necessary and if we deem it to be so, it is. I only partially agree with the statement that these laws don’t actually help. One thing that Bisgould seems to condemn is the idea of factory farming, and she implies that animals raised in that kind of environment are not protected by laws that prevent unnecessary animal suffering because they live their whole lives in confinement, and that  injuries and illness are the norm. However, I have learned in previous classes that most factory farm environments provide adequate vet care to their animals when needed, provide them with well-balanced diets and water, and keep them in the safest possible environment for that number of animals. Free range farming, which Bisgould seems to be more in favor of, exposes animals to more chances to become ill, injure one another, and be attacked by predators. Factory farming is closely regulated by the aforementioned laws, and makes sure that the vast majority of farms are the best possible environment for the animals living there. However, when it

comes to topics like the testing of cosmetics on animals, I don’t necessarily believe that these same laws do anything to protect the animals involved. We have made enough advances in science that testing cosmetics on animals is no longer required and many companies no longer do it. Those that still do test on animals use the guise of “necessary suffering” when it truly is unnecessary. Human consumption of meat and other animal products is and will most likely continue to be the widely accepted norm, but testing of cosmetics on animals doesn’t have to continue at all. We can’t necessarily apply the same guidelines and to every situation because we interact with animals in many different ways.

The overarching topic that Lesli Bisgould covers in her TED Talk about our relationship with animals is the property status of animals under the law. The idea was put into place sometime around the 1700s that animals should be treated the same way that an inanimate object that is owned by a person should be treated under the law. At this time, Immanuel Kant was spreading the idea that animals can feel pain but are not conscious beings, and that they should be treated well by humans because cruelty to animals leads to cruelty to other humans. Since this time, our view of animals has changed greatly. We now know that they are not only able to feel pain, but many animals have some level of intelligence and can maybe even feel emotion. For example, rats have been shown to help their peers out of confinement when given the opportunity, and crows can solve complex puzzles to get food and even appear to mourn their dead. Bisgould suggests that because we now understand that animals are conscious beings, many with some degree of emotion, we should consider changing their status from property to legal person under the law. While I agree that animals should be treated humanely, I believe that they deserve their own category under the law that is neither legal person nor property because they are neither humans nor inanimate objects. Animals deserve to be upgraded from their status as property now that we understand more about them, but considering them legal persons would be too complicated and grant them too many unnecessary rights. As it is stated in the animal ethics reading, women and men both have the right to vote because they are equally capable of making rational decisions. A dog is not capable of this sort of rational thought, and does not need that right. I agree with the direct but unequal philosophy that animals deserve some rights but not more than humans.

Bisgould seems to be under the impression that humans in general practice extreme speciesism and want to keep the property status of animals so that we can do whatever we wish to them. I do not necessarily agree with this, but I do agree that there are many situations in which animals deserve more than property status under the law now that they are widely recognized as sentient beings. Speciesism is also a concept that is largely used by extreme animal rights activists and is at least partially justified in my opinion. Animals are not as intelligent as humans and do not deserve exactly the same rights, but they do all deserve to be treated as humanely as possible for the situation they are in, be it a farming facility, a lab, or a household. It is not possible to treat animals in such different situations exactly the same, but I ultimately agree with the concept of equal consideration based on sentience. The fact that animals can feel pleasure and pain and possibly experience some emotion should be put into consideration and they should be upgraded from their property status under the law, but not to the point of being considered legal persons.

 

 

Blog Post One - The Human-Animal Bond: Made for One Another

Since the dawn of time, humans and non-human animals have shared the earth with one another. However, we did not always have the same relationship with animals that we have today. All animals were once wild animals to us, and the only interactions we had with them involved hunting or being hunted. It took us thousands of years to domesticate animals to use for food and companionship, and many factors to determine which animals were able to be successfully domesticated.

There is a bond that emotionally connects us to our companion animals known as the human-animal bond, or HAB for short. As was discussed in Meg Daley’s TED talk, the HAB is heavily influenced by oxytocin. Oxytocin is known as the bonding hormone, and is largely responsible for connections between mother and infant. It also plays a role in most other relationships. Oxytocin is present in high levels in social species, and it lowers adrenaline levels so that members of the same or different social species will not be in constant fear of one another. Because of this, primitive humans were able to have some level of interaction with other social species such as lions or wolves. The domesticated dogs that we have in our homes today exist because humans were able to interact with less aggressive wolves closely enough to eventually come into possession of wolf pups by one method or another. When these wolf pups were hungry, human women fed them the only way they knew how; suckling them. This caused oxytocin release in both the human women and the wolf pups, most likely leading to the earliest HABs. Humans eventually bred many generations of the tamest wolves to create the many species of domesticated dog that we have today. As was discussed in lecture, oxytocin is released in both human and dog when a dog is pet and it is also release in both parties when looking into one another’s eyes. Oxytocin release causes a feel-good reaction that rewards both the dog and the human for these interactions. The HAB is stronger than ever today between owners and pets because of the same hormone that first assisted us in the domestication of wolves.

Belyaev with a fox. Examples of domesticated coat color, upper left.

One quality that humans seem to select very highly for in domesticated companion animals is cuteness. We like companion animals that have qualities that we see as infantile, and we like them to retain many of the characteristics that they have as juveniles. The retention of juvenile physical and behavioral characteristics into adulthood is known as neotany, and much of the breeding that we do with companion animals selects highly for this trait. We enjoy pets that stay playful their whole lives with traits like large eyes, and soft, rounded features. These characteristics trigger a protective and nurturing response in humans because they remind us of our own infants. They also activate a key reward center in the brain, the nucleus accumbens. We are hardwired to enjoy traits like these because it helps to ensure the survival of human infants. Man's new best friend? A forgotten Russian experiment in fox domestication discusses the experiments of Dmitri K. Belyaev in domesticating silver foxes. By selecting the tamest foxes from each generation he bred, he was ultimately able to breed foxes that enjoyed human interaction in much the same way dogs do. They had lower adrenaline levels than wild foxes along with altered coat coloration, and Belyaev hypothesized that the pathways for adrenaline and melanin were connected. This was later confirmed. Along with this change, these foxes had more neonatal characteristics than their wild counterparts such as licking their caretakers, staying playful longer, and altered skull shape. By breeding only the tamest animals when we first began to domesticate them, we most likely inadvertently created more neotany with each generation and grew more attached as a result.

As was discussed early on in the video, one of our first main reasons for wanting to domesticate animals was so that we could eat the same way we saw the top predators were eating. It was also mentioned that there was a point at which humans were afraid of even large herbivores because it is much more difficult to approach a wild animal than a domesticated one. We eventually domesticated these large herbivores and they would eventually be bred to become the modern horse and cow. However, attempts to domesticate similar large herbivores such as the zebra have been unsuccessful. Jarod Diamond suggests that all species that could possibly be domesticated share six traits: flexible diet, fast growth rate, pleasant disposition, the ability to breed in captivity, a social hierarchy, and no panic. When it comes to diet, herbivore diets have always been cheaper and easier to provide meaning that herbivores were fairly easy to feed in captivity. Carnivores had to be able to scavenge or hunt when humans couldn’t necessarily provide meat regularly, so cat and dog ancestors were able to take care of their own dietary needs pretty well. Almost all domesticated species reach sexual maturity within a matter of a couple of years or less depending on the species. We have bred animals that did not originally possess a pleasant disposition to have one now by selecting their tamest ancestors. All domesticated animals can breed in captivity, and many that we use for food are bred using artificial insemination to speed up the process and make it more efficient. Even animals like chickens have a social hierarchy, although social hierarchies are not necessarily as complicated in animals as they are in humans. Domesticated animals that are handled well and are not abused or neglected will generally not be panicky. These qualities that diamond came up with are the basis for what any animal needs in order to be domesticated, and every animal that humans have successfully domesticated seems to possess these qualities.

There are many factors that lead to the domestication of animals and the formation of the strong human-animal bond between pet and owner. We are lucky to have been able to use these factors to our advantage, and we can now enjoy food, clothes, companionship, and much more that would have been off limits without the help of domesticated animals.