Why own a dog? There's a danger you know,
You can't own just one, for the craving will grow;
There's no doubt they're addictive, wherein lies the danger;
While living with lots, you'll grow poorer and stranger.
And so on and so forth; a very cute little poem that talks about what happens when one becomes a 'dog person' and the love of your pets turns your life upside down.
The poem does have a dark side, though. A friend of mine commented about it thusly: "This cute little ditty hides a real danger - too many dogs languishing for years, warehoused in crates or tiny enclosures, begging for attention while their owner lavishes all their attention on the up and coming show dog, or the lucky "house" dog."
*sigh* I gotta be me....
And of course, it means waxing philosophical.... some would say pontificating.
But sometimes it is necessary to look at a situation more than once before rendering judgment.
Or sometimes, it is not so much the looking but the direction of your view....
OK. On the subject of dogs 'warehoused in crates'... I'll begin with AGREEING with the comment that no dog should have to live such a life. Let's get that off the table first, before the screaming begins.
The subject of 'animal cruelty' is one that causes much screaming and tearing of hair. Yet there are few subjects that are quite so difficult to pin down. Everyone has their own beliefs about how much attention and care is 'enough.' The problem is, no one wants to stop at discussing it as a philosophical exercise; everyone lately seems to be on the 'There oughta be a LAW!" bandwagon. When you start wanting to quantify 'acceptable' care with legal jargon about accountability, it gets really hairy really fast. And everyone is just SURE that they know where that magic grey line is where benign neglect crosses over into genuine, criminally accountable abuse, but here is the problem: Even though everyone says this, no two of us can AGREE as to where that line lies. And that makes for very bad, and unenforceable, laws. Laws drafted with all the best intentions, but then we all know that good intentions pave the way to, where? Yeah.
The hardest thing about trying to protect animals against genuine abuse and neglect is to try and identify where that slippery slope starts. It seems that it should be fairly simple; all animals deserve adequate food, water, and protection from the elements, and for most legal definitions, that would truthfully suffice. But the problem comes down to the fact that many pet people are convinced that this is just not enough; that animals require 'enrichment' and the 'right' to behave like animals. That sounds really good on its face, but the problem is in practice. How many 'normal animal behaviors' should we be fostering? Fighting and destructiveness are 'normal' dog behaviors; should we foster those? So is indiscriminate mating. Which behaviors do we determine are desirable to encourage, does this change from breed to breed or depend on the size of the dog? How do we enforce the idea that all animals must be 'enriched' when not everyone agrees this is needful, or what that 'enrichment should, or must, entail? Who gets to decide what actually is needful care, and what is pampering? The commercial 'breeder' who throws the cheapest feed he can at his charges, giving them the bare essentials of vaccinations and veterinary care, and cleaning them only occasionally; does he get to decide? Or, the crazy cat lady who spends every penny of her retirement on her charges, dresses all her cats in Victorian pinafores and hand feeds them individually cooked bites of salmon from a silver spoon; should her criteria be the ones we must all live up to or be labeled 'neglectful?' Both have very strong opinions about how much care is 'enough,' but who among you wants to live up to either of those models? A lot of hard questions, very few clear answers.
The slope from barely maintained to spoiled and indulged is both long and broad, and there are many stops along the way. And any number of screaming matches at each and every stop. Many dog breeders will get into fisticuffs over differences of opinion on this issue, but I have yet to meet two individuals who actually see eye to eye about how their dogs should be maintained... yet each and every one is certain their way is the best. And few of those impassioned souls have given a moment's thought to how a *legal* description of 'proper care' might look. Yet, this is a subject that we all need to consider, and a conversation that we MUST have, because if we do not come to some kind of reasonable compromise, we are going to still be standing here shouting at one another while the 'animal rights' folks, who are long on 'loving' animals but short on any practical management experience, will force changes that may make them feel good, but mean nothing good for the real live animals. And as their stewards, it is crucial that we stop demonizing everyone who fails to see things our way, and realize that animal care exists on a bell curve, and that not all animals can, or even really should, exist on the beneficent side of that curve. Because we really do need to be the ones driving these discussions, and they do need to be discussions not screaming matches.
What we 'imagine' plays into this discussion, and many of us, especially loving pet owners, have a regrettable tendency to engage in anthropomorphism; believing that our pets 'feel' like we would, in similar circumstances. Yet this is often not true. For example, many people are absolutely convinced that putting a dog in a kennel cage is 'cruel,' because they would be miserable in such a circumstance. What they fail to take into account is that dogs dig dens and feel safe in small enclosed spaces, so for them this is not any form of torture. Many dogs will choose to spend much of their day in such a kennel, snoozing or playing with toys, because they feel comfortable there. Yet activists demand that this is 'abuse' and insist these dogs are unhappy. This is only one part of that conversation, and it has its own slippery slope of those who rationalize their own choices as 'healthy' for their pets.
Sometimes, those lines between adequate care and benign indifference are more clearly defined than others, but it is still very difficult to make a definitive decision about who is actually right. On one end of that confinement slope, for example, are the poor li'l guys who live in a home where there are too many dogs for the owner to give them adequate one on one time to just be dogs. Living 23 hours out of every day in a 2'x 3' enclosure; going out to potty on a rigid schedule. Eating, sleeping, and watching life pass by through the grilled door. On a REALLY good day, they get to stretch their legs on a lope around a show ring, or ease their frustration in an act of copulation. But then it's back in the crate till the 9 o'clock exercise cycle. Yep; I'd call that a pretty miserable and pathetic excuse for a life. And I'd be willing to bet that most folks would feel that such an existence would be worse than death; that euthanasia would be preferable for such a dog.
Then again, we can't really ask the dog about that, can we...? And, what about boarding, training, injury rehabilitation, rescue fostering...? For how LONG can a dog maintain that stultifying schedule before it begins to suffer from lack of enrichment? Easy to say it's wrong; easy to say a lot of things. Harder to accept that in some situations, this might be the best of a bad situation.
On the other end of the slope is the one-dog household with multiple acres and a dog port on the house; this pet lives the life of Reilly. He goes where the people go, he eats with them, he shares their every waking moment, he sleeps at the foot of their bed. The high spot of his owner's day is the afternoon Frisbee session. Wow! What a life....idyllic, isn't it? What we ALL want for our pups....
And reality is--the vast majority of us live somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. Just as most of us live somewhere between Donald Trump and Oliver Twist in the financial department. The similarities there are more relevant than you might at first think, too.
There are two great truths to animal husbandry. The first is: it is easy to denigrate someone who is doing it poorly compared to you. Your love for your animals makes it inconceivable to you that others either can't or won't meet your expectations. That they can't see how important it is to manage things as well as you do, for the good of their pets. This righteous indignation can manifest itself in furious rage, or icy disassociation, or simply a sad shake of the head as you contemplate the Hell their animals must live in.
And the second great truth? Somewhere is someone else looking sadly at YOU, and thinking the same thoughts......
The Irascible Redhead
who undoubtedly thinks too much
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