Dogs Are the Best! But They Highlight Our Hypocrisy.
Aug. 3, 2024, 7:00 a.m. ET
New York Times Opinion Columnist
Over the past couple of decades, dogs have evolved into humans.
Well, at least that’s how we think of them now. Some 97 percent of Americans consider dogs (or other pets) part of their families. A majority of dog owners celebrate canine birthdays, and nearly two-thirds report that they take more photos of their dogs than of family members.
If you’re dating someone with a dog, bring a biscuit: A majority of dog owners say they would consider ending a relationship if the pet disapproved of the partner.
America now has more dogs than children, and households are spending lavishly on pets. Warning that dogs may suffer storm anxiety, one company offers canine noise-canceling headphones for $200. Dog people spend thousands of dollars on oil paintings of Rover, not to mention large sums on dog spas, dog restaurants, dog bakeries and dog fashion.
“When your pooch is wearing clothes from Dog & Co., you know they’re going to be part of the most fashionable pack in town,” one site explains.
Then there are high-end dog foods and sophisticated health services and, if the chemotherapy doesn’t succeed, pet cemeteries. Because people don’t want to be separated from their pets, the Hartsdale Pet Cemetery outside New York City says that it has accommodated more than 800 people who asked to be buried with their pets.
I understand all this. Our last dog, Katie Kuvasz Kristof, was a saint (but not to squirrels), and if Pope Francis is right about dogs going to heaven, Katie is now barking in paradise. There are a few statues of heroic dogs around the world — in Tokyo, in New York City, in Scotland — and in the United States I would love to see more. Perhaps we could replace some statues of Confederate generals with ones of dogs who represented a higher standard of, er, humanity?
Still, the point of this column isn’t to highlight why dogs are the best people, but rather to highlight our hypocrisy: While we increasingly pamper our dogs, we blithely accept the torture of pigs.
Just as today we wonder how people like Thomas Jefferson could have been so morally obtuse as to own and abuse slaves, our own descendants will look back at us and puzzle over how 21st-century humans could have tolerated factory farming and the systematic abuse of intelligent mammals, including hogs.
“Farmed animals are just as capable of experiencing joy, social bonds, pain, fear and suffering as the animals we share our homes with,” Leah Garcés, the president of Mercy for Animals, told me. “The level of cruelty and disregard for their welfare that is endemic to industrial animal agriculture is nothing short of a moral atrocity.”
I’ve given up eating meat from farmed animals, partly because of personal experience: The hogs we raised on our farm when I was growing up were smart, sometimes ornery and equipped with very different personalities. In their variety, they reminded me of my human friends.
Yet pigs are mostly invisible to us before they end up as sausages on a plate, so we typically ignore their suffering.
Female pigs often spend nearly all their adult lives confined to coffin-size pens so narrow that they cannot turn around. They don’t go outside, touch soil, see the sky or exercise.
“Smart, social and playful, sows will demonstrate resistance when first confined (screaming and bar chewing),” the Kirkpatrick Foundation writes in a recent report about industrial hog production. “Distress eventually gives way to despondency: A 3-year-old pregnant sow rarely responds to a nudge or dousing of water.”
In a nutshell, we indulge dogs and abuse hogs. A dog is neutered by a vet under anesthesia. A pig in an industrial hog barn often has his scrotum slit without anesthetic by a farmhand who then yanks out each testicle.
Someone mistreats a dog and we’ll call 911. But if a company tortures millions of hogs as a business model, we dine on its products, invest in its shares and honor its executives.
“The discrepancy is so stark,” Peter Singer, a moral philosopher, told me. “People are horrified by the very idea of eating dogs, but pigs are just as intelligent and make fine companions, too.”
Singer notes that when meatpacking plants closed during the pandemic, at least 240,000 hogs were euthanized by raising temperatures to 130 degrees so that the animals perished from the heat. While some 31 states have laws making it illegal to leave a dog in a hot car or provide immunity to a person who rescues such a dog, it’s fine to torture and kill pigs in that way.
Crystal Heath, a veterinarian who co-founded a group called Our Honor, which addresses animal rights, told me that the mistreatment of livestock weighs on many veterinarians.
Gas chambers for unwanted dogs are being phased out from animal shelters, she said, while more gas chambers have been installed in hog barns to kill pigs — using carbon dioxide, which (as I’ve written) appears to amount to torturing animals to death.
It’s true that we also tolerate cruelty to dogs when it’s out of sight. Some research labs sometimes confine dogs in small cages in ways that are unconscionable.
Yet in general we draw a distinction between dogs and farm animals that is difficult to find a moral basis for. Americans were upset by Koreans and Chinese eating dogs (South Korea this year passed a law that will abolish the trade in dog meat), but it’s not obvious why dining on dogs is ethically more problematic than eating bacon. (Sorry, Katie!)
These are the moral contradictions we live with, and I think we tolerate them only because we don’t reflect on them. So let’s reflect.
We have created a system of industrial agriculture that is exceptionally good at producing cheap meat, but only because it systematically abuses livestock. Are we really OK with that trade-off?
When New Medication Is Introduced, Should You Try It for Your Dog?
As a consumer advocate, the Senior Dogs Project takes on the role of giving you information to help you evaluate what's good for your dog. When it comes to medication, this means looking at benefits versus risks, because all medication comes with side effects. As an example, when Rimadyl was introduced, many incidents of fatal side effects occurred. The Senior Dogs Project helped in the effort to alert consumers and, ultimately, to have the US Center for Veterinary Medicine issue a mandate to the manufacturer for cautionary labeling.
Because arthritis pain is a major factor in many senior dogs' quality of life, it has become a major focus of animal drug companies. Since Rimadyl was introduced, many additional formulations have come on the market. One of the latest is Librela, introduced in November 2023. This drug has gotten some very good reviews from both senior dog guardians and veterinarians.
We like the thoughtful article about this new canine arthritis drug published in The Whole Dog Journal. In addition to discussing the drug itself, the article points out that, in deciding whether to give it to your dog, you should know that:
"Often a drug needs to be given to a very large pool of patients before all the adverse side effects or contraindications – conditions under which the drug poses more harm than good – are discovered."
Even If It's Not "Adopt a Senior Pet Month" -- you can still adopt a senior dog.....
Search for free or low cost pet support services like veterinary care, pet food pantries, temporary pet care and more…… Visit pets.findhelp.com
If you or someone you know is facing the challenges of increased prices related to care of a companion animal, it's possible to find help by going to the petsfindhelp.com website and entering a zipcode.
Statement from the website:
"This platform changes the game for struggling pet owners, who may have thought their only option was to give up a loved pet to a shelter. Human Animal Support Services created this free, first-of-its-kind platform to make accessing pet support services easy."
A Shelter That Doesn't Give Up on Senior Dogs
Memphis, TN -- 3/27/2023 -- Eight-year-old "Star" wound up at Memphis Animal Services earlier this year, when his guardian could no longer care for him. Fortunately, the shelter director, Alexis Pugh, has a policy of assuming that there will be someone "out there" with a heart big enough to adopt a senior dog. So, Star was installed in her office, where he happily assisted in the daily routine for three months while Pugh and her staff got the word out about him. Sure enough, a wonderful adopter showed up for him. Read more and see the video of his send-off....
Rabies Challenge Fund Results Are In
Is it really necessary to re-vaccinate for rabies every three years, as is required by many states? Veterinarians and dog guardians began to question these state laws because they observed the unwanted side-effects, including various cancers that appeared to be directly correlated to adminstration of the vaccinations.
When it comes to senior dogs, in many cases they have been re-vaccinated many times over the years. Veterinarians and dog guardians began to ask, was it really necessary to revaccinate? Or could it be possible that the dogs were still protected, even after more than three years? And could that level of protection be determined by a test known as a "titer"? The Rabies Challenge Fund, organized and funded by veterinarians and dog lovers, was formed to investigate.
Results of the research on rabies vaccinations are finally in. They are reported in Dogs Naturally magazine.
In sum, the results are:
- Rabies vaccine may induce a duration of immunity well beyond 3 years in dogs
- Antibody is the most important protective factor against rabies virus
- Anamnestic responses to virulent challenge can be seen even without protective titers in previously vaccinated dogs
- Protection persists without annual or triennial re-vaccination
- Antibody testing of individual pets can be an excellent indicator of protection or lack thereof … although further studies are needed to determine a protective antibody threshold for vaccinated dogs.
The magazine reports: "Clearly the results were not what we’d all hoped. The rabies vaccination laws won’t be changing anytime soon."
You can get a medical exemption from state-required revaccination laws if your dog's health could be compromised by administering the vaccination. Information from the American Veterinary Medical Association here.
Since laws change, you should check with your veterinarian about the most current regulations in your state.