The Humane Society of US is circulating a petition asking Congress to approve an appointed position that advises the White House on Animal Affairs. The purpose is to raise the awareness of animal issues at the highest levels of government; it will not only apply to companion animal abuse like Atlanta Falcon football player Mike Vick’s dog fighting ring. It will also advise or raise awareness of the plight of lab animals and ostensibly practices like overfeeding geese for foie gras. While all these are real issues that have to be addressed at some level of government, do these practices need a federal position?
Much of the companion animal abuse stems from lack of enforcement at the appropriate levels of government. Anti-dog fighting legislation exists in almost every state and municipality. The fact that these abuses are uncovered regularly implies that the laws are not enforced. It is not clear whether more laws will lessen companion animal abuse. Some practices, like foie gras, are unlikely to be in any legislation, as legislation will also have to outlaw chickens raised in cages crammed with other chickens with little or no exercise. Raising chickens like this is about as controversial a practice as fattening geese for foie gras. Whether we want to admit or not, factory farms with little or no concern for the animals is one reason why chicken prices are relatively low. Overmilking cows is one reason why milk prices are relatively low. Rather than legislating these out of existence, perhaps, we as consumers need to think about the ecological implications of eating meat.
The government in its infinite wisdom often create solutions that are worse than the problem. Since this is a blog about companion animals, lets think of a couple of scenarios that are disastrous for companion animal ownership. It is not inconceivable that one result of the Animal Czar would be the designation of “caretaker” instead of “Owner”, in a misguided attempt to make people more aware of responsible pet ownership. As a caretaker, the government can legislate an Animal Bill of Rights, where the caretaker promises to keep their pets up to date on their vaccines, take the animal to the veterinarian whenever the animal is not feeling well, force people to buy Pet Insurance to help defray the cost, feed the animal a minimum number of calories per day, with so many grams of protein depending upon the size of the animal.
As laudable as these goals are, consider what would happen if the government forced municipalities to fund an Animal Protective Services, much like they are required to have a Child Protective Services; states could be required to fund these new departments. As with children, the Animal Protective Service can confiscate a pet if the owner is deemed negligent or abusive. For children, lack of jackets in cold weather and wearing worn out clothing are a pretty good sign of negligent parents. How would one judge a negligent caretaker with regards to a dog or cat? Leaving the animal tethered outside in a fenced backyard? Walking a big dog, like a bull mastiff, with a choke chain instead of a straight collar? What about long toenails? Would that be a sign of lack of good grooming or lack of exercise, both of which can result in long toenails.
Unlike children, where accepted standards of care are what governments use to decide whether a child is abused or not, no such standard exists for dogs or cats. Consider collars and leashes. Choke chain collars are the subject of quite a bit of controversy, for a couple of reasons. They are associated with older training methods that fell out of favor years ago, so they have a bad reputation. But it is true that people use them because dogs do respond to them far more quickly than they do with a straight collar. To prohibit them creates a practical problem – how would people who aren’t so strong control an exuberant dog that decides to dash after a squirrel? Just like not every parent knows how to raise children, not every dog owner knows how to effectively train dogs. I am not an advocate of choke chains because people do NOT know how to use them effectively and end up hurting smaller dogs. It is doubtful that a large dog with big thick neck muscles are affected the same way with these collars. But to create a policy that prohibits their use and an Animal Protective Service to enforce it does mean that exuberant friendly Labs can only be owned by big guys.
Another example of an arbitrary Animal Protective Service policy that does more harm than good is one designed to make sure the dog has adequate exercise. Some dogs, like Labs or pit bulls require exercise to stay out of “trouble”. The knee jerk reaction to a policy like this is to deny apartment or condominium dwellers the ability to obtain these very good companion animals based upon the misguided assumption that only a house with a fenced yard can provide the proper environment. An apartment dweller who exercises every day with his / her dog does more good than a dog stuck outside in a fenced backyard. First the apartment dweller who takes the time to exercise the dog is also interacting with the dog and providing some level of socialization. The dog barking in a fenced yard has no interaction and only a minimum amount of exercise.
While these are just “What If” scenarios, experience with a government solution to a problem suggests that the cure may be worse than the disease. If the laws on the books are enforced, we would see much less animal abuse. And of course giving Mike Vick a stiffer sentence would help too. This is not to suggest that I do not see the need for better laws or higher visibility of animals at some levels of governments, perhaps a better solution would be to educate would be pet owners on canine psychology so people do not need things like choke chains to control their dogs. If the government really wants to do something about improving the lives of companion animals, a massive education campaign like they did for smoking, would be a better use of taxpayer dollars rather than another bureaucracy that requires taxpayer funding at every level of government.
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