Love you to death

 

Love you to death: how we hurt the animals we cherish

Something has gone badly wrong with the way we keep pets. Our casual cruelties are a symptom of our unhealthy relationship with other species. By Esther Woolfson
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If an emphasis on appearance has had vastly damaging effects on all species, it has exercised a cruelly malign influence over those we keep as pets. Once bred for their qualities as working or hunting animals, for speed and strength, the “selective” breeding of dogs over centuries created diverse breeds from the single canine line, but in more recent years criteria for selection have changed in response to the demand for “pedigree” animals who conform to particular standards of behaviour and appearance. Not just for dogs, the way a creature looks seems a major determinant of their fate. Beginning with an already narrow gene pool, selective breeding has greatly increased the incidence of disease in these animals, many of whom, as a result of our choices, suffer from life-limiting or chronic, painful conditions.

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A young man beside me holds a lead – at the end of it is a puppy standing patiently between us. In the moments before the crossing signal, I listen to the dog breathe. The sound is old and bronchitic, a dissonant issuing from this neat little body, the laboured wheezing of a young dog’s breath. The man is fashionably dressed, and the dog most probably loved and precious. I’m not sure if the dog is a French bulldog or a pug, but he’s one of those that now form a widespread, snuffling, breathless band of canine respiratory distress. The lights change, and man and dog walk off, the dog carrying his possibly malign genetic destiny, his future skin-fold pyoderma, the corneal ulceration that may affect his protruding eyes, the upper airway obstruction that is probably already causing him to wheeze. It’s not the first time I’ve wondered – what made this man and others seek out and pay for creatures who may live shortened, suffering lives?

Deliberate selection for short limbs and long backs has caused dachshunds, shih-tzus, basset hounds and other breeds to suffer from a painful bone condition called chondrodystrophy. Larger dogs such as rottweilers, St Bernards and retrievers experience hip dysplasia, arthritis, osteosarcomas and degeneration of the joints. Eye problems are common in many breeds, as is deafness. Skin diseases and inflammation are caused by breeding for wrinkled skin in basset hounds, bloodhounds and shar peis. Blood, kidney, gastrointestinal and neurological ailments are common – many King Charles spaniels, griffons and chihuahuas suffer from the spinal-cord destroying syringomyelia, caused by having skulls too small to accommodate their brains. It is a condition that has increased greatly over the past 20 years, and continues to do so. Cavalier King Charles spaniels also suffer from mitral valve disease, while other heart conditions afflict boxers, rottweilers and dobermanns. Very small “teacup” dogs suffer from increased bone fragility while “flat-faced” or brachycephalic dogs – such as pugs, bulldogs and Pekingese – frequently suffer from brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome (Boas), which causes breathing difficulties and shortens their lives. Many dogs are artificially inseminated, and as a result of selection for large heads and narrow pelvises, are unable to give birth without a caesarean section.

Cats, too, suffer the results of breeding for “desirable” traits, most often those associated with colour and appearance. Pedigree cats suffer disproportionately from dystocia – difficulty in giving birth, and subsequent high death rates for pedigree kittens. Manx cats may suffer from a number of ailments related to selection for short or no tails including spinal deformities, spina bifida and digestive problems.

Scottish fold cats are subject to cartilage problems, leading to arthritic conditions, while Burmese cats are prone to diabetes mellitus, cranial deformities, glaucoma and kidney stones. Both Burmese and Siamese cats may also suffer from Boas, diabetes, asthma, lymphomas, strabismus, hip dysplasia and small intestinal adenocarcinomas. Rabbits such as the English “lop” have significant health problems caused by their overlong ears. Selectively bred rats are subject to a number of health problems, including greatly increased risk of tumours.

The small dog at the traffic lights is just one of many. Their popularity has increased to the point where, despite widespread publicity about their health problems, demand for them greatly exceeds supply, which has brought about not only the irresponsible breeding that produces unhealthy animals, but has also led to a huge increase in the hazardous and cruel “farming” of dogs, and their illegal trade and importation across borders. At least one danger of this trade is the possibility of the reintroduction of rabies, as a result of faked certificates and the importation of affected creatures. Images from puppy farms look remarkably similar to those from fur farms, showing the dirty, caged, abused and suffering creatures we still continue to buy.

What makes us do it? Why do we encourage a trade that exploits the sufferings of others? One suggestion is that the “childlike” appearance of dogs such as pugs and bulldogs attracts us – according to a theory in evolutionary psychology, Kindchenschema, also known as neoteny, a positive response to the appeal of babylike or cute faces is an evolutionary way of ensuring the survival and nurturing of offspring. The theory may be correct (if you really think that bulldogs look like babies), but it does not prevent us from making an ethical decision about who and what we buy. I watch at the traffic lights as the man leads the dog away, a lifelong victim of our desire for “cute”.

No longer simply a matter of small, personal decisions, our animal owning has implications far wider than the privacy of our homes. It is increasingly subject to the moral, financial and political questions raised by our knowledge of animal cognition, and urgent considerations of consumption and resource. Feeding our pets involves similar questions to the ones we ask about feeding ourselves – what is healthy, affordable, necessary, ethical and environmentally sustainable?

A 2017 study assessed the environmental impact of companion animals in the US. The findings were that dogs and cats were responsible for 25-30% of the environmental impact of all meat consumption, that they created 64m tonnes of carbon dioxide and methane, and produced 5.1m tonnes of faeces annually, the same as 90 million humans. The study suggested that, in the light of these figures, increasing pet-keeping worldwide will make a hugely significant contribution to our current ecological crisis. (The suggestion that the food fed to animals is a byproduct of human food production is refuted by the same study that points out that, increasingly, pets are being fed higher-quality meat and much of what is regarded as unfit for human consumption is deemed so more on aesthetic than other grounds.)

As pet numbers increase, so do our purchases. Browsing pet product websites is like entering an anthropomorphised nightmare of overextended consumerism. One site offers 698 varieties of dog “treats”. Another sells pet beer, wine and herbal tonics for pet anxiety. There are the luxurious beds, the electronic toys, the whimsical clothing. There are socks and shoes, hats, bowties and dresses. There are shampoos, conditioners, dog-nail polish, fur dyes and whirlpool tubs. There are extensive ranges of veterinary psycho-pharmaceuticals to treat anxiety and behavioural problems, aromatherapy candles, colognes and fragranced sprays to mask the creature’s natural odours. There are the fancy-dress costumes – sharks, spiders, sumo wrestlers, light-up Halloween pumpkins and hundreds more.

A braque d’Auvergne. Photograph

In 1943, the Nobel prize winning author Elias Canetti wrote: “It is not good that animals are so cheap.” He might have been writing about the hamsters, mice, rats, guinea pigs and gerbils frequently bought as suitable pets for children, some of whom will be loved, tended and eventually mourned, others of whom will be neglected or worse. Solitary creatures will be kept in pairs or groups, or social ones alone. Crepuscular or nocturnal creatures, as many of them are, will be expected to provide entertainment for diurnal children. Reluctantly, I remember school-gate conversations about unfortunate fates: the school rabbit forgotten over a summer when the parent who was to look after him went on holiday, the escaped mice, the hamsters who fell, disappeared, were drowned or squashed or found burned at the back of a gas fire. The incidents were invariably presented as amusing, told in a tone of mocking self-exculpation. I see a succession of online adverts selling unwanted hamsters and guinea pigs. The child for whom they were bought “lost interest”, the family is moving house, there was an accidental mating. (“Oops!”) What they are being sold for, the cost of a cup of coffee, is the cost of another creature’s life. What is the Umwelt of a puppy-farmed dog, a lone rat, a desert gerbil, a Syrian hamster in a small plastic box?

In an essay, the American writer Alison Hawthorne Deming remembers her cat, one of a feral litter found under the poetry centre where she works. The mother cat was fierce, disdainful of humans, “like a war correspondent who has seen too much ever to believe in human kindness”. One of the staff tames the kittens and gives them away on the understanding that they’ll be given literary names. Deming calls her cat after one owned by the 18th-century poet Christopher Smart. A vocal lover of life, her cat lives as if “each moment were his first on Earth”. When one day the cat shows signs of neurological damage and tests positive for antifreeze, an agent commonly used for poisoning, Deming does not know if the act was deliberate or not, writing that she can imagine a neighbour doing it in irritation over some minor matter, but cannot be sure. The vet puts the cat to sleep, and Deming reflects on the initial bitterness that encouraged her to believe the mother cat wise in staying away from humans – a feeling she overcomes by remembering the happiness of the cat’s life, and her appreciation of his quality of innocent simplicity.

The vulnerability that Francione writes about extends beyond the boundaries of species. Our love for others – human or not – makes us vulnerable, open to pain and loss, and to the use and abuse of power and domination.