Animal Welfare and Human Values

Fourteen: The Community of Sentient Beings

236 Animal Welfare and Human Values century, however, has it become a commonplace in the Western world. We are struck by the fact that when we read eighteenth- and nineteenth -century novels there are rarely if ever any mention of companion animals. To the extent that they were present they played only a minor role in their owners' lives. Nonetheless that crusty old late Victorian Rudyard Kipling proved the exception and recognized the power of dogs to captivate the human heart, as did Sir Edwin Landseer, not by describing the dog's magnetism, but by painting it. Companion animal ownership began to expand with the increased interest in natural history toward the close of the nineteenth century. Of course, already in the seventeenth century King Charles coddled his spaniels and self-indulgent aristocrats proudly presented their exotic pets, but we doubt that they took them for walks or cleaned up their feces. In fact, in the West, the close interrelationship between humans and beasts developed out of the relationship with the working animals —horses for transport, dogs for hunting and herding and cats for mousing and ratting. When affectionate human-animal relationships are mentioned in the novels of earlier centuries it almost always arises out of the close human-animal bond derived from a working partnership. Thus, when Richard Martin first introduced legislation into the British parliament in 1821 to protect animals from cruelty, it was the horse which was the object of compassion. Martin was at first ridiculed in Parliament, reporters being unable to record the debate with any accuracy because of the ribaldry which ensued. There were convulsions of mirth, preposterous exclamations that Martin would want to legislate for dogs and cats next! If it seemed ridiculous to legislate the protection of horses how much more absurd it was to suggest that humankind should be restricted in the manner in which it treated animals which were of a lesser working necessity. And when the British S.P.C.A. was founded in 1824 its predominantconcern was to protect horses from the cruelty inflicted by those who worked them. In The Descent of Man (1871), Charles Darwin wrote: "Man scans with scrupulous care the character and pedigree of his horses, cattle, and dogs before he matches them; but when he comes to his own marriage he rarely, or never, takes any such care." We are not sure Darwin is quite right in the latter part of his statement. Hindu arranged marriages, the comments of Xenophon and Theognis in classical Greece on the importance of wise choices, aristocratic prohibitions against unions with commoners, church and state requirements against familial inbreeding, the traditional dire threats about the consequences of interracial marriages—now diminished but customarily still whispered by members of all races—suggest that Darwin was exaggerating human insouciance. Still, it has been suggested, without any attempt at comedy, that marriage choices are often made in a state of insanity. Yet it is undoubtedly true that significantly more care has been given to the Companion Animals 237 breeding of animals in order to develop characteristics appropriate to a particular task. Horses have been bred variously for speed, jumping ability and for strength. Dogs have been bred for different kinds of herding, a widevariety of species-specific hunting and fetching, and for fighting. More recently they, and cats, have been bred solely for certain looks deemed appealing. Indeed, the groups of dogs under which the American Kennel Club lists the various breeds include sporting dogs, hounds, working dogs, terriers, toys and non-sporting dogs. (The term 'toy' should raise eyebrows, but it is just a synonym for miniature.) Clearly, the first four categories consist of breeds developed for specific purposes totally unrelated to their suitability as a companion per se—and some for purposes quite unsuitable for a home environment. Neither of the other categories were developed specifically for their appropriateness as a companion animal. Yet all today are companion animals—and many suit the roleadmirably. One sometimes reads that there are over 400 breeds of dogs and 50 breeds of cats today. There may well be if one uses methods of calculation which count very similar breeds in different countries as separate breeds. In fact the American Kennel Club lists 126 breeds, almost all ofwhich are registered breeds. Human owners tend to display a special affection for a particular breed. They see themselves less as dog owners than as aficionados of borzois or beagles or basenjis. We must ourselves confess a...