IV. PET AND COMPANION ANIMALS

The term companion animals refers to those animals human beings keep for purposes of control, companionship, and comfort. The word pet, which suggests the indulgent use of animals (Shell), is being increasingly replaced by the term "companion animals." However, the term pet animal seems indispensable in conveying the relationship of intimacy between some humans and selected domesticated species.

The Emergence of Pet Keeping

The precise origins of pet keeping are obscure. There appear always to have been symbiotic relationships both between species and within species (see, for example, Kropotkin), although some argue that "almost alone among animals, humans domesticate and dwell with other animals" (Clark, 1982, p. 110). Keeping animals as companions may have been a by-product of both killing and domesticating them. Stephen Clark argues that "[p]eople who cared for their animals [kept for food] left more descendants than those who used them carelessly" and that "it 'paid' our ancestors to love what wasn't human" (1982, p. 111).

Some animals were undoubtedly kept for their own value as sources of fascination or as mediators of unusual benefits. For example, cats, although domesticated for a much briefer time than other species, have frequently been associated with the supernatural, as agents either of benign or malign forces (Clutton-Brock).

English society in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw the emergence of widespread pet keeping, especially among the upper classes. Keith Thomas writes of how, as early as 1700, "symptoms of obsessive pet-keeping were in evidence," especially in the keeping of horses, cats, dogs, and pet birds (Thomas, 1983, p. 117). These species were clearly "privileged" in comparison with food animals, which were still reared and killed with hideous cruelty. Although the "idea of a pedigree did not originate in the nineteenth century," Harriet Ritvo shows how the notion of purity of species through selective breeding became widespread among the middle and upper classes, for whom particular companion animals were themselves indicators of social class and good breeding (Ritvo, 1986).

Since the nineteenth century, the phenomenon of pet keeping has increased not only among all English classes but also within European and U.S. societies. Although reliable estimates of animal populations are very difficult to obtain (partly because of nonexistent or unenforced licensing laws), one conservative estimate is that the total annual U.S. turnover in owned dogs in 1991 was 7.71 million, 4 million of which were handled by animal shelters and 2.1 million of which were euthanized (Patronek and Glickman). The current situation in the Western world of millions of animals being kept for purposes of companionship extends far beyond any reasonable interpretation of symbiosis and is historically without parallel.

Quite apart from the personal and psychological factors involved, one obvious reason accounts for this development. Pet owning has become an established part of consumeroriented cultures in which animals are bought and sold like any other commodity. The pet industry itself, not to mention the allied supply (including veterinary) services, benefit directly or indirectly from the trade, management, and treatment of companion animals. In 1991, in the state of Washington alone, it is estimated that the number of dogs available from pet stores amounted to 11,442, and through breeders, 37,523 (Patronek and Glickman).

The Benefits of Pet Keeping

These may be classed under three broad headings:

PSYCHOLOGICAL BENEFITS TO HUMANS. It seems impossible to doubt that some human–animal bonds can contribute significantly to human flourishing. Relationships with pets seem to help prevent two sources of emotional disorder: deprivation and frustration. They enable nongenital physical contact, provide tactile comfort, improve self-esteem, enhance emotional security, boost personal prowess (as when a beautiful or socially appealing animal is owned), and engender loving relationships that are sometimes seemingly impossible with other humans (Ryder; Levinson; Fogle; see also Serpell).

Potential or actual benefits for pet owners specifically include lower blood pressure (Baun et al.), lower heart rates (DeShriver and Riddick; Wilson and Nettling), reduced anxiety (Wilson, 1991), and reduced depression (Bolin). However, Cindy Wilson argues that although "much has been made over the potential benefits of a pet," it is also true that a large amount of such research "remains anecdotal, nongeneralizable, and scientifically flawed" and that a new methodology should be based on assessable "quality of life measurements" (1994, pp. 4–8).

In the absence of large amounts of data based on objective evidence, interpretation of the psychological effects of pet keeping turns on whether interspecies relations are natural and commendable. Richard Ryder warns against the view that such interspecies relationships are "unnatural or cranky" (p. 5); but that accepted, it is still questionable to what extent legitimate psychological needs are met through pet keeping and whether these needs can or should be met through relationships with members of our own species.

BENEFITS TO HUMAN SOCIETY. It has long been thought that pet keeping can help sensitize children, even train them in attitudes of care and respect (Rothschild). One study goes so far as to claim that "companion animals are a vital part of the healthy emotional development of children" (Robin and Bensel, p. 174). Studies have also suggested that relationships with pets can contribute to the psychological and social well-being of adult humans, especially elderly people who live alone (Connell and Lago). Animal-assisted therapy is sometimes utilized for patients in psychiatric hospitals and for individuals with special needs, such as people with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or aquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) (Gorczyca) and those suffering from chronic schizophrenia (Bauman et al.).

BENEFITS TO PET ANIMALS. The benefits of pet keeping to the animals themselves are difficult to quantify. Leaving aside the wider ethical question of whether animals should be domesticated at all, the impact on the individual pet depends on how well it is kept and to what degree its owners understand and meet its emotional and environmental needs. For example, although pet keeping can provide a stimulus to sensitize children, it can also conversely provide an opportunity for cruelty by abused or disturbed children or by children who lack parental supervision. Some commentators see something psychologically, even politically, perverse about indulging pet animals (see, for example, Shell), and, as discussed below, it is not clear that such indulgence is always beneficial to the animals' welfare.

The Disadvantages of Pet Keeping

Formidable ethical and welfare problems are associated with pet keeping (Carpenter et al.). These may be classified under three headings:

ABUSE. Recorded acts of cruelty against pets appear to be increasing in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Living in close proximity to animals, whatever the benefits to both parties, substantially increases the risk of abuse. Apart from deliberate acts of cruelty, even sadism, unsuitable environmental conditions can cause unacceptably high levels of stress for animals. Few owners fully understand the complex psychological and physiological needs of the animals they keep. Cruelty sometimes arises through ignorance and misunderstanding rather than deliberate neglect, especially when the subjects are exotic animals. Abuse or neglect does occur despite the many and various pet-care programs available.

OVERPOPULATION. Present high levels of pet populations inevitably mean death, and sometimes suffering, for other animals. In order to sustain high populations of species such as cats and dogs, for example, other species such as whales, kangaroos, and horses must be killed in order to feed them. Few pet animals of any size can be sustained without meat, though it appears that dogs can live well on an appropriately balanced vegetarian diet. The commercial production of pet food has also been criticized as a waste of resources. The average cost of feeding an eighty-pound dog has been estimated at $8,353 for its lifetime (Shell).

High pet populations also raise other problems for humans. These include possible health hazards, nuisance, and social control. Dogs can communicate diseases such as Toxicara canis, which can cause blindness in children. Fortunately, such cases are rare, but an awareness of this hazard in the United Kingdom has recently led to local councils outlawing dogs from public parks, particularly children's parks. Animal organizations, such as the United Kingdom's Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), have argued the case for compulsory registration of dogs as a means of ensuring responsible ownership; so far, such schemes have operated only on a voluntary or local basis. In 1992, the Dangerous Dogs Act was introduced in the United Kingdom to deal with the threat posed by aggressive dogs after some distressing incidents in which children were attacked by uncontrolled dogs.

COMMERCIAL USAGE. Since domestic animals have almost everywhere only the legal status of property (Sandys-Winsch; Sweeney), the breeding and sale of pets is subject to few legal constraints, save principally that direct and "unnecessary" cruelty must be avoided. The view that pets are merely human property has inevitably led, as with other consumer items, to the refashioning of pets. Nonveterinary mutilation of pets (e.g., tail docking, ear cropping, declawing, and removal of a dog's larynx to prevent barking) is not uncommon, though in the United Kingdom the British Veterinary Association refuses to authorize all nonveterinary procedures; performance of such procedures can lead to revocation of a veterinarian's license. The RSPCA opposes all "selective breeding of animals which produces changes in bodily form and/or function," in addition to the commercial sale of puppies and kittens in pet shops (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, pp. 7–8).

Animal protectionists argue that the commercial trade in animals leads inevitably to overbreeding and the consequent abandonment and disposal of millions of unwanted animals. In the United Kingdom, the RSPCA estimates that it destroys on average about 1,000 unwanted dogs every week. In the United States, estimates vary from 2.1 million to 9.1 million per year for dogs alone (Patronek and Glickman). Such a wide discrepancy in the figures indicates, among other things, the difficulty in collecting uniform data from the estimated 1,800 to 3,000 animal shelters in the United States. Current widespread euthanasia suggests a prima facie disregard for the worth of pet animals (for a discussion of the ethical problems surrounding large-scale euthanasia, see Kay et al.).

Is Pet Keeping Immoral?

Despite the emergence of a strong animal-rights movement since the mid–1970s, the ethics of pet keeping is seldom questioned. The major works in animal ethics (Singer; Clark, 1977; Regan; Rodd) largely or entirely bypass this question, and only lone voices are raised in critical opposition (Linzey, 1976; Bryant). Animal-rights philosophy has evolved without offering any critical analysis of the pet trade, though some argue that abuse of pet animals is a "human breach of contract" (Rollin, p. 219). Since so many animal-rights thinkers oppose a purely utilitarian justification for animal exploitation, this omission is surely anomalous.

Part of the reason may be that, historically speaking, sensibility to animal suffering seems to have arisen as a necessary corollary to the practice of keeping pets (Thomas, 1983; Tester). The physical inclusion of animals into the human community seems to have signified a moral inclusiveness also. It may be no accident that the first country to found a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals—England—was also the country renowned for its love of pet animals. Moreover, one cannot but be struck by the way in which anecdotes about animal behavior, especially that of pet animals, have formed the basis for a whole string of pioneering humanitarian books appealing for greater kindness to animals and a fundamental recognition of their rights (see, for example, Youatt; Wood; Nicholson; Thomas, 1993; Lessing).

Yet questions must be asked about the ethical appropriateness of the psychological needs that pet animals apparently meet. Ryder accepts that some of these are "selfish" (p.8). One early critique argued that "we need to distinguish between a kind of love which respects animals for what they are and allows them to pursue their own lives according to their own natural instincts, and another selfish form of love which seeks to condition animal lives in accordance with our own human desires." Pet keeping, it is argued, represents a "false anthropomorphism" in which we seek to "humanise" animals and "regard them as extensions of our own egos" (Linzey, 1976, p. 68). This view was subsequently modified on the grounds that "all loving is in practice a subtle blend of altruism and self-seeking," although "where the interests of animals are entirely subordinated to human emotional needs, we need to beware that we are not involved in a self-deceiving tyranny" (Linzey, 1987, p. 137). According to this perspective, at least some forms of pet keeping are wrong because they are insufficiently symbiotic and fail to recognize the right of animals to their own natural life.

andrew linzey (1995)

bibliography revised

SEE ALSO: Care; Compassionate Love; Environmental Ethics; Grief and Bereavement; Healing; Moral Status; and other Animal Welfare and Rights subentries

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