CBC’s The Current featured a panel discussion yesterday about the ethics of having pets. Although the panelists–Gary Francione (animal rights superstar), Jessica Pierce, and Stanley Coren mostly focused on dogs, rat companionship was raised. I have a few brief thoughts about providing a good home to rats, and about commodifying animals more generally.
Commodifying animals
Francione argues for an abolitionist position on pets (and animal use more generally). While he believes that humans have moral duties to care for animals that are here because we have bred them, breeding animals to keep as companions should end. From an abolitionist perspective, we can imagine a future where animals are not kept as pets. Francione’s point is partially about the problem of ownership. The primary concern, however, relates to keeping animals in captivity to serve human interests (that can be served without the use of animals).
Francione focuses on “use” generally. Many approaches to animal rights share this broad focus; instrumental use, objectification, and respect for autonomy (to name a few) get lumped together under rights violations. As I have argued elsewhere with Patrick Clipsham, I don’t think enough attention is paid to the particular wrong of commodifying animals. Thus, I was glad when questions about commodification were raised in the interview.
Consider this exchange
ANNA-MARIA TREMONTI: Well we have a pet industry in Canada alone that is worth nearly seven billion dollars a year. Can you put the brakes on that?
STANLEY COREN: Well, the pet industry is providing materials which are needed for people who own dogs and cats. The pet industry is just a servant in this particular case.
JESSICA PIERCE: I kind of agree with that. I think that the pet industry is not the servant. We are the servants of the pet industry and the animal, the live animals, are the backbone. I don’t think they’re the main economic benefit. They’re pretty cheap. You know if you buy a pet rat it’s going to cost you $8. But to get all the paraphernalia that the industry wants you to get, that’ll be an extra 150 bucks.
A brief interruption
Pierce underestimates the amount of money you can spend to support rat companionship. When I rescued Dottie, Xena, and Gabrielle from the Human Society, their adoption fee was $15/rat. I spent about $180 on their initial set-up, but really their cage isn’t the best kind for rats and I should upgrade to a multi-level one (which tend to run about $300). Their hay huts need to be replaced periodically and they need mineral licks. I spend about $50/month on the paper fluff that line the bottom of their cage per month.
In addition, rats need general enrichment opportunities, and providing enrichment can be costly. Of course, enrichment doesn’t have to be expensive. As you can see from the picture of the rats’ bedroom accompanying this post, most of their toys are old carpets, boxes, and comic books. But like other animals, caring for rats well can assume that one has adequate financial resources. (see Carla Fehr’s blog post about how caring for dogs in the context of weight loss can be costly). Economic privilege and animal companionship raises tricky questions.
Okay, back to commodification
JESSICA PIERCE: But I think that the pet industry needs to feed our obsession and it’s coming on the backs of live animals and I it’s really problematic for the animals. Animals are being used as their emotional commodities. I was at a veterinary social work summit, all the talk was about encouraging people to get animals to help them get better and nothing about the welfare of the animals themselves and what did they have to say about this. Did they want to be therapeutic objects? I don’t know.
STANLEY COREN: Jessica, you know all of the industries are held over there to feed our obsessions. We have a cosmetics industry. We have a fashion industry.
Pierce asks good questions, but she doesn’t address the commodity aspect of being made an emotional support. The value of a commodity is determined and regulated by non-moral preferences of consumers. Whereas I am perfectly content to treat my skin care and clothing according to non-moral preferences (though I do think environmental costs and fair wages are part of determining this value), animals are not the sort of entities that ought to be treated in this way.
The pet industry isn’t just about purchasing products for animals, but about purchasing animals themselves. Treating animals as commodities is something that deserves ethical attention as a separable harm from using them for human-centered interests.
Caged companion animals
Pierce focuses less on whether it’s ethical to keep pets and more on how to be an ethical human companion to animals. For example, she points out that many dogs suffer from boredom. Further, she advocates against keeping caged animals.
There’s more to say about the ethics of caged animal companions, and perhaps Piece gets into this question in Run, Spot, Run: The Ethics of Keeping Pets (University of Chicago Press, 2015), which I haven’t (yet) read. When you rescue an animal that needs to spend part of their time in a cage, for their safety (even if they have their own bedroom), you have to think about how to keep them well.
My rats spend most of their day in a cage. Well, they spend most of their time in a cage. During the day this doesn’t seem so bad, because they sleep a lot. When I researched rat companionship, the best practices suggested they need at least 30 minutes outside of their cage per day. I try to do more. In the morning, I spot clean their poo and try to give them at least 30 minutes of play time. Sometimes, like today, it’s more. Sometimes, especially when I teach at 8:30, it may be less.
In addition to morning play time, they have at least 30 minutes in the evening. I takes me 30 minutes to ruffle through the cage and pick out poo. But again, I try to give them more, mostly because I like interacting with them. (And picking the rats out of the poo bag as the continually try to crawl in doesn’t count as a quality interaction). Time, of course, is just one aspect of thinking ethically about living with rats.
Rats are a “beginner” companion animals
As I edit this post, I can hear and see the shape of two rats wrestling inside the sweatshirt where they like to tunnel. As I’ve worked on this post I’ve protected my coffee from inquiring lips, and I’ve had my nostrils cleaned out by Dottie. I’ve had Xena and Gabrielle, at different times, run across my keyboard and drop some pee. Don’t fret, rat pee is odorless and colourless. I’ve watched them leap between the card table and the arm chair.
The brochure on my fridge proclaims rats to be a “beginner level” companion animal. In my experience, having had cats and fish in my adult life, rat companionship is more akin to dog companionship (granted, I have not had a companion relationship with a dog as an adult). Sure, you don’t need to take rats out to pee at 5 a.m. Perhaps the time and care rats require is part of a “beginner” experience with companion animals. Nevertheless, I find “beginner” language misleading. Or perhaps I just want an acknowledgement that sharing one’s home with “beginner level” animals require ongoing reflection about how to do it well.