17 Feb 2012 4 Comments

by Jennie Filed under:

I love my dogs, but they’re still property

If I were to walk into a vets office, right now, and ask that Singer be “put to sleep”, odds are I could find a vet willing to do it.

Singer is a perfectly healthy, happy, 3-4 year old dog.

It’d be even easier to find someone to kill Wyatt, who has chronic lung disease, or Orion, who is older and somewhat dog selective.

I’d barely need an excuse. I can’t afford them, I can’t house them, they bite other dogs, they growled at me, they guard their food, I don’t want them anymore but I don’t want anyone else to have them. Some vets would turn me away, but I could find one.

If I want to, at any time, I can kill my dogs because they are chattel property. They have minimal, if any, rights under the law. If I want to hook them to a sled and run them until they die, I can. If I decree they’ve outlived their usefulness, I can kill them. If I want to keep them outside 24 hours a day, I can, as long as for some part of that period they have access to some kind of shelter and water.

The point of all this is that, although I love my dogs, they are my property. I can do almost anything I want with them. They are deprived of essential liberties. I own them. I like to pretend I don’t. I like to treat them like they’re individuals with rights, but this is not (legal) reality.

Last week a friend posted a video from the Daily Show where a PETA representative was being interviewed about a lawsuit PETA is bringing against SeaWorld on behalf of three orca whales, one of whom, Tikilum has killed two people. Yes, this is a very PETA tactic; bold, extremist, kind of ridiculous given that these whales are not legally individuals, and can’t really bring suit or have suit brought on their behalf. People made various expect comments about SeaWorld and how nice they are to whales, etc. The thing that struck me is that someone was very upset that the PETA rep compared the whale’s captivity to human slavery. This person has many vegan friends, including me, and I mentioned I was surprised she’d never heard any of us make similar comments. Her response was to ask me if I think therapy dogs are also slaves.

Well, yes, I do.

Not because they’re therapy dogs, per say, but because they’re dogs and they are slaves – chattel property. I can ask/tell them to do whatever I want and they have to do it, or I can punish them in pretty much any manner I see fit. I can chain them up, lock them up, put a spiked collar on them and jerk on it, hit them, kick them, restrict their access to food and water. There are always regulations that put outer limits on my behavior, but I can do a lot of very unpleasant things to them for simply not doing what I say.

I don’t, of course. If my dogs don’t do what I ask, I try to figure out why and rethink what I’m asking. I don’t kick them for refusing to sit, or peeing inside, or running away. But I could.

Don’t get me wrong. Domestic dogs and their relationship to us is in many ways different from human slavery, and in many respects is different from other forms of non-human animal slavery. Tikilum the whale is exponentially less suited to a life of captivity than my dog is, if only because my dog is domestic. And domestic dogs enjoy a different relationship with humans than other domestic animals do as well – more and more they are becoming companions and family members, and not tools. But don’t forget than as little as 100 year ago (and even today in some places) it was perfectly acceptable for me to kill my dog because he wouldn’t perform up to task. Culling was not unusual and still occurs today. And it’s legal, if you go about it legally (i.e. “humanely”).

So is a therapy dog a slave? Yes. Is every dog a slave (i.e. chattel property)? Yes. Is it mostly a “cushy” slavery? Probably. Are dogs still our property to dispose of as we wish?

Absolutely.