PHILOSOPHY OF ANIMAL CONTROL

In publishing circles and other contexts that must react to the changes brought by digitization both as changes in print and changes in technology and organization created by the Internet, Google, POD and other factors, one recurring theme is the need to move from “horizontal” to “vertical” in terms of marketing, disciplines and so on. “Horizontal” was supposed to be everybody, but actually turned out to be “everybody like me.” That is, the main horizon was probably the middle class with others either delegating their concerns to employees or actually trying to suppress the underclass. This is all very high-toned generalization, but I want it “out there” so as to show why “animal control” is an excellent “stovepipe” or “silo” concept. We all relate to animals, but in quite different ways depending on class, education, culture, and personal experience. This is a vertical concern that crosses through all the horizontals.

If you’re Oprah or Martha Stewart, your concerns are probably about AKC breeds, good trainers, proper kennels, skillful grooming, and so on, mostly delegated. Dogs mean status. Horses even more so. If you’re a householder with kids, doing well but nothing extraordinary, you might be thinking about veterinary bills, leash law, taking plastic bags along on dog walks, whether bark collars are cruel, and whether the local shelter where the kids picked out your pet is killing too many animals . If you’re in the underclass at the lowest reaches, a dog is just like anybody else. It moves in on its own volition rather than being bought, feeds itself, travels the community, and is a survival-of-the-fittest “breed.” Of course, for the criminal class -- which is not the same as the impoverished class -- a dog is a weapon.

Likewise, the law about animals is layered and niched. At a certain level, esp. among the academic, animal law is philosophical and can speak of the “rights” of animals, meaning what minimum requirements might preserve their essential identity. At the extreme, eat vegetarian, wear no animal products, don’t go hunting, and try to push others into that same behavior. But on that level at the other extreme is someone like Paul Shepherd who says we are all animals and that humans are shaped by hunting, that we lose something essential without it, a cruelty of non-participation as though we were ectoplasmic, not involved in the fleshly mesh of being.

Next level down might be treaties, esp. those focused on preserving species around the globe by regulating trade in animals, their uses as raw materials, their transmission of zoonoses, and their loss due to habitat loss. We worry about bird flu, the elimination of migratory waterfowl and songbirds, the loss of rain forest, and the invasions of tree-destroying beetles. It is clear that the Mexican laws protecting Monarch butterflies, who winter there, must be supported and encouraged by the USA. Climate change affects us all and must be addressed at the planet level.

Then there is the Supreme Court of the US, which enforces treaties, but also reconciles issues that must be interpreted according to our founding Constitution. I’ve never had occasion to study their cases in terms of their rulings about animals. No doubt they address animals as possessions, like the great cattle herds on the prairies before the land was divided up and fenced. A quick glance at ˝Google” reveals that at this level animal law runs into religion, both historic ones that have traditionally sacrificed animals and New Age redefinitions of animal rights and the nature of cruelty. Where the people go, so do the animals go.

States may pass their own laws, so long as they don’t contradict the federal law, and counties or towns and cities may pass their own laws under the same conditions, except that sometimes they can even create a bubble of jurisdiction that contradicts state law. It is at this level that most animal control battles are fought while the “humane societies” stay at the level of high philosophy and even what might be called a kind of religion. Most animal control is both about practical response to emergencies involving animals, those in danger and those endangering others, and the pesky daily dilemmas of neighborhoods: barking, unsanitary conditions, inappropriate pets (alligators, big snakes, tigers), cruelty, criminal pursuits (dog fighting, drug houses) and general household breakdown. Presumably these are hands-on issues that might involve a backhoe to lift off a cow fallen through the cover of a septic tank or simply removing an unwanted batch of kittens.

Few people spend much time examining their treatment of animals, though most are good at prescribing what others should do. A kind of consciousness-raising is now sweeping many “niche” uses of dogs, especially working dogs. Since dog breeds originally arose in response to breeding, just like breeds of horses and cows, and since they are exceptionally plastic genetically, they seem to some like quite different animals: a mastiff doesn’t seem much like a terrier, and they serve entirely different purposes, but they are both dogs. If a law is passed about “dogs,” it affects all these breeds equally but not necessarily appropriately. Nor is it always easy to draw lines between categories of dogs. Some jurisdictions in the early days wrote laws governing dogs according to size, for instance, dogs too small to reach onto a butcher’s block to steal meat (evidently a bit problem at the time) were exempted from licensing. What about jumping dogs? If a dog one foot tall is small, what about a dog that is 13 inches tall? 12.5 inches?

Working dogs are generally not a problem unless they are not worked. When they are working, they are in partnership with a human being and focused on a task. The human can be held responsible if a pack of hounds or a burrowing terrier or a retriever makes trouble. When the “work” of the dog is to be ornamental, lying on a hearth, winning prizes by meeting standards that are not necessarily healthy for animals, or being carried around to events in a “purse” toted by a starlet, problems arise.

But wait, there’s more. Law enforcement itself, whether done by animal control or humane society, is generally approached by the uninitiated through the idea of the pound or shelter. That’s what people see and where many of the costs are obvious. But real in-the-field enforcement is done by people who go out to be independent and trained witnesses, judging on the basis of rationally agreed-upon standards. They can do thumbs-up/thumbs-down by impounding (though not from private property), writing citations to be judged in court, but also by jaw-boning dog owners or complainants, distributing information, or simply resolving the situation, like untangling a deer trapped by a fence. Like bar-tenders, librarians, and dumpground guardians, they do a lot of counseling.

The next level, the judge, comes to bear as a result of the citation, but styles might be quite different. They can fine, in the case of felony law they can imprison, they can simply lecture in the public arena of the court, they can order animals removed or possibly some kind of change like neutering, and so on. But they might not do any of that. I vividly remember the judge who had grown up in a tough neighborhood who always excused biting dogs on grounds that it is in their nature to bite and that people should look out for themselves.

Rural summary justice allows a dog that attacks livestock to be shot on the spot. The court doesn’t get involved unless the dog owner questions what the dog was doing with the livestock or if the livestock owner sues for damages. Civil court can review any kind of case, whether or not there is a law on the books.

Another level of law exists that is not quite law: regulation. These are the rules that govern importation, food-handling, proper animal confinement and slaughter, pet store and zoo standards, kennel standards, the proper conduct of a dog show or a race of horses or dogs, and so on. They do not require public votes, they can be interpreted variously or they risk being so Procrustean that they create rather than resolve problems, and they are not enforced by judges but rather by administrators, who can make them so restrictive as to be prohibitive.

The law making process is almost always contentious now that our country has become so multiple, so heterogenous, so lacking in consensus about even such basics as the education of children. Romantic notions still left from Rousseau, Enlightenment ideas about rationality, superstitions from everywhere, rural transplanted to urban -- on and on and on. It is a struggle. Never do we come to rest, but always must revisit problems. BUT we may be able to agree on principles -- for a while -- IF we can stop thinking that each of us lives in a self-evident normal way and gives up trying to force others to conform to what we “know.”