Pets are more popular than ever. About two-thirds of American households own at least one pet, up from 56 percent in 1988, according to the American Pet Products Association, and Americans spent $136.8 billion on their pets in 2022, up from $123.6 billion in 2021. An estimated 91 million households in Europe own at least one pet, up by 20 million over the past decade. India’s pet population reached 31 million in 2021, up from 10 million in 2011.
And our pets are becoming more and more like us, or at least that seems to be our goal. We pamper them with personalized nutrition plans and carriers, hydrotherapy for dogs and stays in boutique hotels for cats. All the BestAt PetSmart, a high-end pet store chain in Seattle, the most popular items are enrichment toys for cats and dogs, designed to stimulate and bring happiness to animals that are increasingly “just lying around alone and bored,” said Annie McCall, the chain’s marketing director.
Now, some animal welfare ethicists and veterinary scientists are questioning whether, in our efforts to humanize our pets, we have gone too far. The more we treat pets like people, they argue, the more limited and dependent our pets’ lives become, and the more health and behavioral problems they develop.
“We now view pets not just as family members but as equivalent to children,” said James Serpell, professor emeritus of animal ethics and welfare at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. “The problem is that dogs and cats are not children, and owners have become increasingly protective and restrictive. As a result, animals are not able to express their own dog and cat nature as freely as they otherwise would.”
CONTENT FOR SUBSCRIBERS
The health risks begin, of course, with breeding. One of the most popular dog breeds in the United States is the French bulldog, a member of the brachycephalic family, flat-faced dogs that socialize well with people but have trouble breathing, among other serious health problems.
But we are also changing our animals’ relationship to their environment. Because of concerns about bird predation, many cats now spend their entire lives indoors. Until the late 1970s, even city dogs spent most of their time outdoors, either in backyards or roaming loose in the neighborhood. Now, said Jessica Pierce, a Colorado bioethicist whose work focuses on animal-human relationships, “the off-leash, loose dog is considered contrary to the natural order of things.”
One of the fastest-growing market segments is the so-called pet confinement sector, which includes indoor crates and fences, as well as head harnesses and electronic collars. “The level of constraint that dogs face is profound,” Pierce said. Although dogs were more likely to be hit by cars several decades ago, he added, “those risks were outweighed by the freedom of experience and movement.”
The modern pet paradox, in a nutshell: “Owners don’t want dogs to behave like dogs,” Serpell said.
While dogs are being allowed into an increasing number of human spaces — restaurants, offices, shops, hotels, as well as more parks with designated dog areas — their growing presence has not translated into greater independence.
Confinement and isolation, in turn, have led to an increase in aggression and separation anxiety in animals, Serpell said. About 60 percent of dogs and cats are now overweight or obese. And due in part to the burden and expense of pet ownership today — veterinary fees, pet sitters, boarding costs — more people are abandoning animals in shelters, leading to higher euthanasia rates. In 2023, more than 359,000 dogs were euthanized in shelters, the highest number in five years, according to Shelter Animals Count, an animal rights group.
“We’re in a weird time of pet obsession,” Pierce said. “There are too many of them and we keep them too intensely. It’s not good for us or for them.”
It’s true that domesticating an animal has always meant striking a balance between its nature and ours. “Defining freedom for a dog, an animal that has been artificially domesticated and selected for by humans for so long, is a really interesting puzzle,” said Alexandra Horowitz, a canine cognition researcher at Barnard College.
Horowitz drew a contrast with stray dogs, a category that includes most of the world’s estimated 900 million dogs. Free-roaming dogs have shorter lives and no guarantee of food, Horowitz said, but they can make their own choices. “That’s an interesting model for us to consider — thinking about how to make a dog’s life richer with choices so they’re not captive to our whims all the time, without endangering society at large,” he said.
In recent years, Scandinavian countries have begun banning the breeding of some dog breeds that are particularly prone to disease, such as the Cavalier King Charles spaniel. In Sweden, it is illegal to leave pets alone at home for long periods; in both Sweden and Finland, it is illegal to confine animals to cages and fences inside the home in most cases.
But it’s unclear whether these animal welfare policies reconcile or reinforce the fundamental paradox of pet ownership today, said Harold Herzog, a professor emeritus of psychology at Western Carolina University who studies animal-human relationships. “The more we view dogs and cats as autonomous creatures, the less we can justify keeping them as pets,” he said.
#killing #pets #love
