When I was a child, my relationship to animals was very close. The neighborhood children and I often included family pets in our games as if they were one of us. Dogs enjoy many of the same games that children spend their days playing. They enjoy frisbee, hide-and-seek, tag, and imaginary adventures of exploration. In a few cases they patiently submitted to being dressed up in baby clothes and became part of the family when we played house. Even though we were the “owners” of these dogs, we never thought of ourselves that way. To us, they were equal members of the family and enthusiastic, willing participants in our childish games.
The pets that shared my childhood had good lives. They never went hungry, they received medical care when they were sick, they were always included in family activities, and when they reached the end of their lives were buried with honor. As a child, I believed every pet must have a similar life.
The first experience I had to make me realize that this “ownership” of animals is not always benign happened when I made a visit to a neighbor who was known as a cat lover. Mrs. Smith (whose name has been changed for privacy) asked me if I could look after her cats for a weekend while she went away to take care of a family member who was ill. I knew she had several cats, and I liked cats, so I was happy to agree to help her. She gave me a key to her house and said to come in on Saturday morning. The instructions would be placed on a note on the kitchen table.
Saturday morning, I arrived at Mrs. Smith’s house, unlocked the door, and stepped inside to be greeted by an almost deafening chorus of feline despair. Cats were everywhere, cats of all sizes, colors, and ages. As I tried to make my way to the kitchen to find the instructions, I was surrounded by so many cats that it was difficult to walk. I felt like a long-lost God returned to the lonely flock created and abandoned many millennia ago. As I reached the kitchen table and read the instructions, I realized that for at least two dozen if not more cats, there were only four little food bowls and that they would have to fight each other to eat the food given to them. I set the four bowls on the floor and took out every other bowl Mrs. Smith had in her cupboard, putting them on the floor as well. There still weren’t enough bowls for every cat, but at least now only two or three of them had to share at a time.
I used to think Mrs. Smith was a very nice woman who really cared for cats. However, her house reeked because of the cats. I peeked into the room where the litterboxes were kept and almost threw up. She had not written on her instructions that I should clean up those boxes, but I did it anyway. It looked like she did not take care of them very often herself, and for all of those cats there were only four litterboxes. I swept and found some disinfectant so I could wipe down the dirty surfaces where the cats had gone when their litterboxes were to full for them to tolerate. Afterwards, I sat down at the kitchen table with my head in my hands, exhausted and almost in tears. Cats jumped up to receive attention and love. Some of them were so thin and battered from their fights with the other cats; they were obviously the ones who usually were pushed out of the way by the bigger, stronger cats at feeding time. I could not understand how this nice, cat-loving lady could ignore the sadness of so many of her cats.
This incident changed the way I felt about ownership and animal rights. I know there are some people who can share their lives with a lot of animals where the animals are in a much better condition than Mrs. Smith’s cats, but to be responsible for so many is a difficult thing. When I returned home, I told my parents about what I had seen, and they praised me for what I did for the cats, but they also called Animal Welfare. Later, my parents told me that when Mrs. Smith returned home, Animal Welfare people visited her and helped her deal with her problem that was out of control. I was afraid to see her because I thought she would be angry with me, but she invited me over and I felt I must go to see her. When I went to her house, there were only four cats left. She cried and said she would miss the others, and I was shocked that she apologized to me and thanked me for my help.
Another thing I learned is that if people do not take responsibility and control of their individual situations, larger forces can come in to solve the problem with brute force that may have undesirable results. I do not like to think about it, but many of the cats that were taken from Mrs. Smith probably did not find happy homes with families that care about them, but were euthanized . These larger forces often operate with the belief that there was nothing else that could be done.
An example of a larger social and political force with this attitude, that there is nothing else to do but simply exterminate an unwanted population, can be found in the colonial British treatment of Native Americans. Colonists made treaties with the Native Americans, almost all of which were broken in favor of policies that removed entire tribes and groups of tribes from lands that new immigrants desired for themselves. These people were not seen as equals to the Europeans who were arriving in great numbers to the New World. Their needs were not understood. Words like “savage” applied animal-like attributes to the nature of the Native Americans and their cultures, making it easier for colonists to enact policies against them. There was no big network of nations to oversee what was happening in North America to offer balance, advice, or a regard for human rights. At first, it may have even seemed to be like a kind policy, for the British and other colonists to simply keep moving the tribes to the west where there appeared to be plenty of land. However, even on a large continent like North America, land is limited. British colonial policy carried over to the future rulers of the land. For example, Andrew Jackson had a rather straightforward policy of “Indian removal” to move the entire Cherokee tribe from their lands east of the Mississippi river to the state of Oklahoma in 1838 and 1839; this became known as “The Trail of Tears” in which over 4,000 of the 15,000 Cherokee perished on this journey (“The Trail”). These people were treated as if they had no more value than vermin or weeds occupying the land.
As individuals, towns, nations, and global networks, we must maintain awareness of the differing needs of our earth’s citizens, whether they are people, cats, or otherwise. It takes cooperation, education, and awareness among all in order to construct political and social situations that account for the health and welfare of groups and individuals. Without this awareness, individuals and entire groups are at risk for broad policy by large groups that use strong-arm tactics to deal with problematic situations.
Works Cited
The Trail of Tears: Judgement Day. PBS Online, 1999. Web. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1567.html
