Exotic Pets: A Response to Kim

Kim asks, "Should it be legal to keep exotic pets?"

My answer: only in extreme cases. I do not think it is right to kill a tiger or a cheetah or gorilla simply to take its young and sell them as pets, as often happens. However, if these animals were abandoned or rescued from homes as pets, I think that would be a reasonable reason to have them. Here, I don't mean as a pet, but in a wildlife sanctuary where animals can live out their lives with trained professionals who can properly care and handle them, and where the animals can live out a happy life. So here, although they are being kept, they are not just pets. Animals who are taken from their parents at a young age cannot be released back into the wild, and so the only answer for the rescued ones is a sanctuary or a zoo.

Another common occurrence in the exotic pet industry is that the animal was bought because it was cute when it was young. When it grows up, the owner does not want the pet anymore because they are no longer cute, they are too large, they underestimated the strength of the animal, they simply cannot care for it any more, or a combination of any of these factors. This happens with pets we would normally have too, such as a dog or a cat. As Kim made clear in her post, if you cannot properly care for a pet, do not get one in the first place. That holds especially true for these exotic animals.

With all of this, I have not touched on the extreme case of keeping an exotic pet. The only situation I can conceivably think of is keeping one that was abandoned, orphaned, or rescued to give it a better life. But even then, as I stated before, it is better for these animals to be in the care of a professional who knows how to handle the animal. If the person who has the animal in its care is a professional and is sincerely trying to give the animal a better life, it can be acceptable, though I myself do not condone the practice. Also, the animal would need plenty of space to run around, roam, and exercise.

My question now is this: Should these different sanctuaries allow the animals to breed to battle the extinction of endangered species?

Omnivores

As much as I think America goes overboard with the slaughtering of animals for meat, I thought I'd like to expand on something that came to me earlier in the night. And I hope that no one in the class takes offense to this, because none is meant at all.

A friend and I walked to Angie's for subs, and I ordered a turkey sub while she got a chicken parmesan. Later in my room as I was eating the sub, I thought to myself that humans are omnivores, and they are not the only ones. Bears are also omnivores, as well as many other animals out there. Do humans really have to give up on meat?

I know that I personally would probably not be able to make it as a vegetarian. I get hungry easily and it often takes quite a bit to fill me up. Salads and pasta don't cut it for me. Believe me, I've tried. Cereal does a pretty good job, but I have to eat two or three bowls, depleting my cereal and milk resources faster than normal. What really helps is having some kind of meat. Plus, I like the taste of it. I will admit, I know that there are things out there like Boca meat and tofu and other meat replacements that I have not fully tried, but I'm not sure how easy it would be for me to give it up.

This is the question I would like to pose. Is there evil in humans eating meat if they don't have to when nonhuman animals do the same?

Kelsey's Question

In her latest post, Kelsey asks the question: In your opinion, which method of approach do you think is more logical and/or the best to take in regards to animal ethics, especially the slaughtering of animals?

Kelsey's blog mainly talks about absolutism versus incrementalism, and the effects each approach has on animal ethics. This is a tough question, because both views have their high and low points. A high point of absolutism is that everything would start over and there is a great chance for change. But how can it be guaranteed that history won't repeat itself if this were the case? How can we stop the treatment of animals from coming back to where it is now?

Incrementalism, what has been happening now, has made positive steps forward. Because of exposure to the creulty behind killing animals for fur, many companies have been producing realistic faux fur, so real that it's tricking fashion experts. This exposure is changing the minds of fashion students and experts about using real fur and switching to the faux fur as well. The downside of incrementalism though is that it is slow. Yet because there is a foundation to work off of, steps are being taken in the right direction to improve animal laws and rights and their quality of life. To me, I feel like incrementalism is more logical because of that foundation to work off of.

My question now is, what are the chances of history repeating itself with incrementalism? How about absolutism? Are the chances greater for one side or the other?

Little People?

I wanted to talk about this last week after we watched the movie, but before I could write the quote down, I forgot it. Thanks to someone in class the other day (sorry that I can't remember who), I remembered it. There was a quote in the movie about treating pets like little humans, and I thought of something interesting. It is true that there are many people out there who dress up their pets in one way or another because it looks "cute", and I've even seen videos of something as ridiculous as a dog wedding. Yet I think there are legitimate reasons for dressing pets up as well.

I've seen many animal shows, a lot of them about dogs and how to take care of them. In some cases, there are real reasons to put clothes on dogs and to take care of them in the same way as humans. With dogs like Chihuahuas and the Chinese Crested, a sweater can be essential in the winter so that they do not freeze. I even remember that my mom wanted to get a sweater or a blanket for our dog to have in the winter when he got older. Also with the Chinese Crested, since their bodies have mostly no hair, it is a requirement to put on sunscreen in the summer and to even use acne products on them. They can get acne just like we can. (You can look this up on the Animal Planet website. Just look at the Chinese Crested clip for Dogs 101.)

For Huskies and Malamutes that are on sled dog teams, booties are another essential. They give the dogs more traction and also help to protect the pads. (Of course, I don't advocate using dogs for sledding unless it's something the dog enjoys.) At the same time though, I've also seen countless clips where dogs are wearing booties and walking around funny because they aren't used to them. I feel bad for these dogs because they look so miserable while the person holding the camera just stands there filming or is laughing.

Now I have to ask, can you think of other reasons that a person would dress up their pet?

No Touch Monkey!

Okay, so many of you are probabaly wondering about the title of this post. It's the name of the book I just read, by Ayun Halliday. The full name of the book is No Touch Monkey!: And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late. The entire book is her memoirs of different travels, and in the essay titled On Dress, Ayun recalls a trip her and her husband made across the desert on camelback in India. If a camel misbehaved in any way, the handler would hit and beat the camel in the face. There was one quote in particular that really stuck out at me, though. Halliday wrote:

"I couldn't bring myself to look her in the face, partly because I'd heard that camels' foul-smelling sputum could blind you if they spat in your eye, but also due to the cruelty of that wooden plug staked through her nostrils. The urban primitive movement was just gathering steam, and as a subway-riding city dweller, I'd seen my fair share of septum piercings and oversized jewelry whose purpose was to stretch. Still, I couldn't help noting that those were modifications humans had inflicted upon themselves by choice. I reckoned that if I were an animal and some two-legs drove a chunk of wood through my nose, I'd feel pretty f***ing stoned to get payback. I wouldn't hesitate to buck any brightly turbaned turkey making a show of steering me by yanking on a nylon cord," (Halliday 209).

My question this time is an easy one. What is your opinion on this quote?

Bryan's Question

In his latest post, Bryan asked the question, "If you were start to fix the pet industry, where would you start?"

Bryan brings up points like putting animals in good homes and fixing problems with breeding, and to me these are the places to start. One thing that can be done to start is to find and eliminate any illegal puppy mills, where animals are bred in the masses and disease runs rampant. In these conditions, animals are kept in cramped and dirty quarters, with little to no fresh food and water, and there are too many animals. Finding these and getting rid of them would be a positive step in the beginning.

As for fixing breeding problems, there are simple steps that can be taken. Spaying and neutering animals ensure that they do not create unwanted or uncared for pets. Yes, I know this can cause pain in an animal, but overall spaying and neutering can extend an animal's lifetime. Also, education about this is essential. I remember watching a show on Animal Planet called Pit Boss, all about an organization run by Shorty Rossi. He runs a talent agency and a Pit Bull rescue all in one. In one episode, he was called into a neighborhood by a fourteen-year-old boy who was concerned because an un-neutered male would escape from his yard and wander around the neighborhood. This dog had impregnated many dogs, including the dog the boy owned. Not to mention that the male was also the female's daughter. In this case, Shorty and his employees went into the neighborhood to talk to the owner. They informed him about the problems of not neutering his dog and told him about a clinic where the dog would be neutered for free. They also went around the neighborhood and talked to the people who lived there about the same points. The people were all open and recipient about what the group was talking about. In the end, the owner did agree to have his dog neutered. The reason he hadn't before was because he saw it as a sign of masculinity and toughness for his dog. (Of course, I may not be remembering that bit entirely accurately, so if anyone else has seen this, please let me know.)

Overall, I think these are good places to start, and education about these and other issues is especially important. The more people know and learn, the more something will be done about it. So now my question is, do you think the reason others don't spay or neuter an animal is because they also see it as a symbol for something?

Consciousness versus Unconsciousness

In our readings, there has been a large debate over whether animals are conscious or not. Some have the view that they are conscious, conscious of what they want, conscious of their pain, yet others knock these arguments aside by saying that animals may have wants and feel pain, but they are not aware of this and so are not conscious. Bermond describes consciousness as "knowing that you know," yet I agree with the point brought up in class today that this sounds more like self-consciousness than consciousness in general.

In the essay we read, Lynch argues that humans and animals are conscious, yet their levels of consciousness may vary, and uses the examples of driving and having a headache to describe his views. Through this, Lynch conveys his beliefs that there are varying levels of consciousness. Yet at the end of Lynch's argument, there is another two pages written by Jane Duran, agreeing with his statements and yet pointing out what she sees as flaws in his argument. According to Duran, the only degrees of consciousness are being awake (being conscious) or being asleep (being unconscious).

Reading that really struck a chord in me. I understood where she was coming from and, to me, it makes a lot of sense. I understand what everyone else is saying when they use the terms "conscious" and "unconscious", yet there are so many different ways to use a word. As we have seen in class, sometimes we have to be careful with the ways in which we use words in our arguments.

Having said all of that, I am curious. How would you define consciousness and unconsciousness? How would you define the terms in the case of animal ethics?