In this season of peace and good will, the animosity between those who claim to speak for the animals and those who denigrate them seems more irritating and out of synch with reality than usual. In an attempt to clear the air of what often are more struggles for human power than any concern about animals, I offer the following, updated perspective of animal rights advocated by companion animal veterinarian Jacob Antelyes. He proposed these as the standard for all veterinarians for all animals, regardless of the animal’s commercial value and the wealth and status of their owners. I will expand this to include all animals regardless of their emotional as well as commercial value, and propose it as a standard for all animal-care professionals as well as owners. To me, making these considerations part of our daily interactions with animals would be the best gift we could give them.
Antelyes listed five rights:
Respect: Three decades after Antelyes first put respect at the top of the list of animal rights, the need to grant animals this is greater than ever. Currently, a very sad and growing trend is for emotion and projection of human desires to replace knowledge and respect for the animal’s unique needs. Is Frosty doesn’t like or care to interact with other dogs, we drag her to the dogpark or doggy daycare because it makes us feel good. If Figaro freaks every time he sees another cat outside, we go off and get another cat anyhow, then blame him for not liking the new cat, either. We know it will take Poppy a minimum 6-8 weeks of consistent human response to internalize the new behavior, but geez, we have big project due and company coming for the holidays so she needs to behave right now.
Food and Water: The idea of supplying animals with food and water seems so basic that it doesn’t bear mention. However, providing food (and even the best food) and water is the easy part. As all those overweight animals, from dogs and cats to birds, ferrets, rabbits, ponies and horses make clear, animals also deserve to be fed the right amount. The fact that we humans may choose to use food to fulfill our emotional needs does not give us the right to impose that same standard on our animals.
Additionally, this right involves offering food and water in a mental and physical environment conducive to stress-free consumption. This means not placing food and water bowls in chaotic environments simply because it’s more convenient for us. It means paying attention to the way animals relate to each other as well as any people in their environments; some stressed animals will eat or drink excessively whereas others will eat and drink only the most minimal amounts. Offering food without addressing any underlying physical, behavioral and bond factors that might render that food less than optimal denies this basic animal right.
Privacy: Few owners of hospitalized animals would question the right of their pets to be in a clean, quiet environment in which the animals feel safe and can thus focus all their energy on getting better. Perhaps the only reason we don’t demand this is because we accept that many human patients aren’t afforded this right, either. On the other hand, in our own homes and when our animals are healthy, we may expect them to participate in all of our activities. Moreover, we even may feel offended if Princess opts to disappear under the coach or bed or into her crate rather than do so.
Other times we may respect our animal’s right to privacy, but friends and others cannot. “What’s wrong with Princess? Why does she always disappear when I visit?” they ask, implying some tragic flaw in her or our relationship with her. If she really loved us, she’d stick to us like glue, right? Maybe, maybe not. She might stick to us like glue because she lacks so much confidence in herself and us that she dare not let us out of her sight.
Freedom from Avoidable Pain: Since Antelyes listed this right in his article in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1986, the use of pain medication in animals has skyrocketed. Many times this is promoted as a totally positive phenomenon and anyone who questions it is dismissed as an animal-hater. However, the reality is that pain is the ultimate physiological-behavioral-bond condition and treating it is as much, if not more, art than science. Medications that only address the first component may make it easier to ignore the other two. For example, veterinarians who use and prescribe state- of-the-pharmacological-art pain medications but kennel sick or injured animals in noisy, brightly lit, crowded quarters are only doing part of the job. In these situations, the medication serves as a substitute for quality care.
Similarly owners who just want to medicate without first ascertaining how the medication will affect their particular animal in their particular environment may be using the medication to meet their own needs more than their animal’s. They want Spunky to appear pain-free because it bothers them when she limps on that healing leg. When pain-free Spunky over-extends herself and does even more damage to the leg, they can’t imagine how that happened. Consequently, granting animals freedom from avoidable pain involves more than popping pills. It’s a process that requires thoughtful consideration of our animals’ needs as well as our own.
Since Antelyes wrote that article, we can add the burgeoning use of psychoactive drugs to alleviate mental pain, too. But we run into the same problems here as we do with medications that theoretically target physical pain, with one additional twist: the use of practically all of these drugs in animals is experimental. So far we lack a clear idea of how these drugs work, and all of them have side-effects. Consequently, animals on them have a right to careful monitoring lest the pain they create is worse than that which they were meant to treat.
Right to a Meaningful Death: This may seem like a downer subject for a holiday season commentary, but taking the time to consider end-of-life scenarios when our pets are healthy is one of the most precious gifts we can give them. I feel so strongly about this, I wrote a whole book on the subject: Preparing for the Loss of Your Pet. Although some pet owners condemn the way farmers and ranchers may dispatch an animal life with what they consider total indifference, one could also question the moral values of those who would allow a suffering animal to linger because they believe that euthanasia violates the animal’s rights.
However, the critical issue isn’t whether one believes in euthanasia or not. The critical issue is to accept that claiming a right to life for an animal means doing so in a manner that fulfills the animal’s right for respect, food and water, privacy, and freedom from avoidable pain. If granting the right to life does not include all that, it’s a self-serving gesture that says more about human fear or ego than love of animals.
When Albert Schweitzer formulated what later became known as his Reverence for Life philosophy, he was not so naive as to believe that no living being should die of anything other than “natural” causes. He was a physician who daily saved lives using treatments that killed all kinds of microorganisms and parasites; he was also a theologian and philosopher who understood the flawed logic of saying that those living beings didn’t count. He knew they did count and counted very much, and he was awed by their unique qualities. And it was his awe and respect of what some would consider even the lowliest being that led him, not to maintain that no creature should be killed, but that the death of no living being should go unnoticed.
So here’s a good reason to consider what rights you offer to animals and why: In the overall scheme of things, our animals represent more than one individual of one species. They represent a conglomerate of species within and without on whom their lives depend, just as we do. Not only that, there’s an excellent possibility that, like us, they share bits of parasitic DNA with those others just as we do. Consequently and as Chief Seattle knew more than a hundred years ago without the benefit of all that science, as the animals go, so go we.
In this season of peace and good will, the animosity between those who claim to speak for the animals and those who denigrate them seems more irritating and out of synch with reality than usual. In an attempt to clear the air of what often are more struggles for human power than any concern about animals, I offer the following, updated perspective of animal rights advocated by companion animal veterinarian Jacob Antelyes. He proposed these as the standard for all veterinarians for all animals, regardless of the animal’s commercial value and the wealth and status of their owners. I will expand this to include all animals regardless of their emotional as well as commercial value, and propose it as a standard for all animal-care professionals as well as owners. To me, making these considerations part of our daily interactions with animals would be the best gift we could give them.
Antelyes listed five rights:
Respect: Three decades after Antelyes first put respect at the top of the list of animal rights, the need to grant animals this is greater than ever. Currently, a very sad and growing trend is for emotion and projection of human desires to replace knowledge and respect for the animal’s unique needs. Is Frosty doesn’t like or care to interact with other dogs, we drag her to the dogpark or doggy daycare because it makes us feel good. If Figaro freaks every time he sees another cat outside, we go off and get another cat anyhow, then blame him for not liking the new cat, either. We know it will take Poppy a minimum 6-8 weeks of consistent human response to internalize the new behavior, but geez, we have big project due and company coming for the holidays so she needs to behave right now.
Food and Water: The idea of supplying animals with food and water seems so basic that it doesn’t bear mention. However, providing food (and even the best food) and water is the easy part. As all those overweight animals, from dogs and cats to birds, ferrets, rabbits, ponies and horses make clear, animals also deserve to be fed the right amount. The fact that we humans may choose to use food to fulfill our emotional needs does not give us the right to impose that same standard on our animals.
Additionally, this right involves offering food and water in a mental and physical environment conducive to stress-free consumption. This means not placing food and water bowls in chaotic environments simply because it’s more convenient for us. It means paying attention to the way animals relate to each other as well as any people in their environments; some stressed animals will eat or drink excessively whereas others will eat and drink only the most minimal amounts. Offering food without addressing any underlying physical, behavioral and bond factors that might render that food less than optimal denies this basic animal right.
Privacy: Few owners of hospitalized animals would question the right of their pets to be in a clean, quiet environment in which the animals feel safe and can thus focus all their energy on getting better. Perhaps the only reason we don’t demand this is because we accept that many human patients aren’t afforded this right, either. On the other hand, in our own homes and when our animals are healthy, we may expect them to participate in all of our activities. Moreover, we even may feel offended if Princess opts to disappear under the coach or bed or into her crate rather than do so.
Other times we may respect our animal’s right to privacy, but friends and others cannot. “What’s wrong with Princess? Why does she always disappear when I visit?” they ask, implying some tragic flaw in her or our relationship with her. If she really loved us, she’d stick to us like glue, right? Maybe, maybe not. She might stick to us like glue because she lacks so much confidence in herself and us that she dare not let us out of her sight.
Freedom from Avoidable Pain: Since Antelyes listed this right in his article in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1986, the use of pain medication in animals has skyrocketed. Many times this is promoted as a totally positive phenomenon and anyone who questions it is dismissed as an animal-hater. However, the reality is that pain is the ultimate physiological-behavioral-bond condition and treating it is as much, if not more, art than science. Medications that only address the first component may make it easier to ignore the other two. For example, veterinarians who use and prescribe state- of-the-pharmacological-art pain medications but kennel sick or injured animals in noisy, brightly lit, crowded quarters are only doing part of the job. In these situations, the medication serves as a substitute for quality care.
Similarly owners who just want to medicate without first ascertaining how the medication will affect their particular animal in their particular environment may be using the medication to meet their own needs more than their animal’s. They want Spunky to appear pain-free because it bothers them when she limps on that healing leg. When pain-free Spunky over-extends herself and does even more damage to the leg, they can’t imagine how that happened. Consequently, granting animals freedom from avoidable pain involves more than popping pills. It’s a process that requires thoughtful consideration of our animals’ needs as well as our own.
Since Antelyes wrote that article, we can add the burgeoning use of psychoactive drugs to alleviate mental pain, too. But we run into the same problems here as we do with medications that theoretically target physical pain, with one additional twist: the use of practically all of these drugs in animals is experimental. So far we lack a clear idea of how these drugs work, and all of them have side-effects. Consequently, animals on them have a right to careful monitoring lest the pain they create is worse than that which they were meant to treat.
Right to a Meaningful Death: This may seem like a downer subject for a holiday season commentary, but taking the time to consider end-of-life scenarios when our pets are healthy is one of the most precious gifts we can give them. I feel so strongly about this, I wrote a whole book on the subject: Preparing for the Loss of Your Pet. Although some pet owners condemn the way farmers and ranchers may dispatch an animal life with what they consider total indifference, one could also question the moral values of those who would allow a suffering animal to linger because they believe that euthanasia violates the animal’s rights.
However, the critical issue isn’t whether one believes in euthanasia or not. The critical issue is to accept that claiming a right to life for an animal means doing so in a manner that fulfills the animal’s right for respect, food and water, privacy, and freedom from avoidable pain. If granting the right to life does not include all that, it’s a self-serving gesture that says more about human fear or ego than love of animals.
When Albert Schweitzer formulated what later became known as his Reverence for Life philosophy, he was not so naive as to believe that no living being should die of anything other than “natural” causes. He was a physician who daily saved lives using treatments that killed all kinds of microorganisms and parasites; he was also a theologian and philosopher who understood the flawed logic of saying that those living beings didn’t count. He knew they did count and counted very much, and he was awed by their unique qualities. And it was his awe and respect of what some would consider even the lowliest being that led him, not to maintain that no creature should be killed, but that the death of no living being should go unnoticed.
So here’s a good reason to consider what rights you offer to animals and why: In the overall scheme of things, our animals represent more than one individual of one species. They represent a conglomerate of species within and without on whom their lives depend, just as we do. Not only that, there’s an excellent possibility that, like us, they share bits of parasitic DNA with those others just as we do. Consequently and as Chief Seattle knew more than a hundred years ago without the benefit of all that science, as the animals go, so go we.