Detached from Reality: Emotion and Animal Issues
How many of you can slaughter a hog? How many of you can lay out the dead body of a loved one on your dining room table so you can wash and dress it before the funeral? How many of you can shoot a man in self defense? It was not many generations ago when these situations were part of the reality of most American lives. Even women and teenaged children were not exempt from these grim duties.
The reality of our lives has changed dramatically in the past century. Today, our meat comes wrapped in cellophane from the supermarket. Our loved ones die in hospitals and their remains are quickly whisked away by funeral directors and are not seen again until they are made up, dressed and lying in an expensive coffin. In many states, self defense is made difficult, if not impossible, by unreasonable gun laws.
Before you protest, I know that as dog breeders and hunters, the readers of this magazine are much closer to nature than the average American, but even we are still pretty far removed from most of the grimmer aspects of nature. Think about the last time you were in a crowd and got a strong whiff of body odor. No people in the world are as detached from the often grim realities of life as Americans.
For that reason, I think that as a people, we are more susceptible to the hyper-emotional, media-driven arguments of the animal rights movement. Here are just four AR campaigns that seem to strike a chord with dog owners, even our own people.
Canine Overpopulation
Take a look at the web pages cited in the footnotes. Each page is illustrated with photos of pitiful puppies, their big eyes staring at you through wire fences. The writing is crammed with emotionally-laden words like “crisis,” “loneliness” and “suffer.” Every element is calculated to appeal to the emotions of anyone who has ever loved a dog - and to their pocketbooks. This issue is the single biggest fund raiser for all AR organizations.
From the HSUS web page entitled “The Crisis of Pet Overpopulation:” Every year, between six and eight million dogs and cats enter U.S. shelters; some three to four million of these animals are euthanized because there are not enough homes for them.1
From the PETA web page entitled “Help PETA End the Companion Animal Overpopulation Crisis:” Approximately 3 to 4 million cats and dogs, many healthy and young, are euthanized in animal shelters or by animal control agencies every year. Other unwanted animals suffer a far worse fate - being warehoused for years in “no-kill shelters” that refuse to euthanize unadopted and unadoptable animals. Confined to cages for years on end, they go insane out of loneliness and confinement. Many more unwanted animals are simply abandoned to suffer and die on city streets or in rural areas. There simply are not enough good homes for all the animals being born.2
From the In Defense of Animals website entitled “The Companion Animal Overpopulation Crisis:” It is a sad fact of life in our society that millions of “surplus” cats, dogs and other domesticated animals have no place to call home. The kennels and cages of America’s animal shelters are filled to capacity with these abandoned, lost and unwanted creatures. New strays and discarded family companions arrive continuously, yet there is not nearly enough space for them all so their stay must be short as they await an uncertain fate.
It is estimated that between six and eight million cats and dogs enter animal shelters every year in the United States, but only about half of them make it out alive. Those who are reclaimed by their guardians or adopted into someone’s home are the lucky ones. Animals who remain when the short holding period expires are unceremoniously euthanized to make room for others who are also in desperate need.
Hunting
I don’t have to tell anyone reading this about the emotional media attacks on hunting. From “Bambi” to last year’s Disney cartoon “Open Season,” children’s movies always portray hunters as bad guys. TV series like “Lassie” and “Flipper” and adult movies like “The Bear” portray animals as harmless, human-like creatures.
Horse Slaughter
In the late 1960s, Velma Bronn, nicknamed “Wild Horse Annie”, made headlines in her efforts to protect the habitat of the wild mustangs. This past year, her successors in activism have gradually restricted the right of horse owners to sell horses to be slaughtered for human consumption. Like most American girls, I grew up daydreaming about horses and I confess that it makes me swallow hard to imagine selling a beloved old horse to the knacker. However, the reality of the situation is that the cost of disposing of the remains of a horse is quite expensive. Middle-class horse owners who can’t get some reimbursement for the remains of a horse that is going to be put down anyway may soon find horse ownership too expensive.
Medical Research
It is difficult for even the most rational dog owner to think about the use of dogs in medical research without wincing. The AR organizations know that and they are playing our emotions like a guitar. Here in Michigan, there is a proposed bill that would prohibit shelters from selling unwanted dogs and cats to medical researchers. The rational argument, made by the Michigan Association of Purebred Dogs and the Michigan Hunting Dog Federation, is that these so-called “random source” dogs are very valuable research animals, and that these dogs are going to be euthanized either way. By allowing them to be used for research, the lives of these dogs will benefit both humans and pet dogs. But even though HSUS has hired a lobbyist in Michigan to promote this bill, it is almost impossible to get our own people to oppose it. Every one of us and every dog we own benefits from research done on animals, but none of us wants to stand up for the needs of the researchers.
In this multimedia era, it’s difficult to defeat emotional arguments, especially when they are so easily illustrated with pictures. The first thing we must do is have accurate information at our fingertips. Nothing makes you look like an idiot more than an inability to respond immediately to a false AR claim. In dealing with so-called overpopulation of dogs, for example, Dr. Al Stinson of the Michigan Hunting Dog Federation pushed through a state law that required every shelter in Michigan to report their statistics to the state Department of Agriculture. After several years, Dr. Stinson hired a researcher to compile those reported statistics. The result showed that only about 2 percent of all the dogs in Michigan are euthanized each year in shelters. Having facts like this at hand makes it possible to shut down the emotional “overpopulation” argument before it gains too much momentum.
The second and equally important task for us is to train ourselves to resist these emotional arguments. As I’ve pointed out several times in this article, I feel the pull of all of these emotional arguments. My mother and I nearly came to blows arguing over the horse slaughter bill after PETA photos of a foreign slaughter facility were published in her hometown newspaper. The only way to resist emotional arguments is to focus on the facts. In many cases, the emotional arguments of the AR organizations are based on lies and half-truths - having the whole truth in your pocket will give you an edge.
Finally, you must preach this message to your spouses, to your children, to your friends and to your co-workers. There is no overpopulation of dogs in the United States. Hunting supports wildlife conservation and preservation of wilderness. Human slaughter of horses for human consumption makes it possible for middle-income families to continue to own horses. Medical research using dogs saves human and canine lives. If you can’t make these arguments convincingly to the people you know, you’re not doing your part to preserve our way of life.
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