In the Dog House

Yeah, I'm back and, readers, I bet you missed me. All of you. Millions of readers, I've got.

I was perusing the Mail Online this evening, as I often do, and clicked, as is my wont, on all the animal-related stories. Here's a doozy: they ran a feature on a Tumblr blog devoted to 'dogshaming', where people post photos of their dogs along with signs written in the first person describing (or 'confessing to') whatever 'crime' the dog in question has committed.

I'm not saying I didn't find any of them funny - the dog who pukes under the bed looks like a lad, and I like the one about humping the cat - but scrolling down a page of these images began to feel more and more unpleasant. The problem was that the signs were not always celebrations of the fundamental wack-ness of dogs. They were accusations written in character but expressing the frustration of owners who seem to see behaviour that is either natural (eating everything they can get hold of) or the result of poor training as genuinely shameful. But dogs have no shame, only submissive responses to disapproval.

Look at the site if you think I'm exaggerating: there is one dog that is shamed for destroying carpets when left alone - this is a well known symptom of anxiety and boredom. There is a dog that is obviously unhappy whose sign reads 'I like peeing on everything'. That is another classic symptom of anxiety and fear.

These pictures are posted as jokes but many of them depict attitudes to animals that are potentially if not actually abusive. I like animal pictures, I like dogs, I like the Daily Mail (yeah, shoot me) but seeing this just made me think more than ever that there should be legal processes in place to make pet ownership less easy to walk into. A dog is a dog and it cannot be publicly humiliated by having its picture online. The desire of some owners to revenge themselves in this way on dependent animals is the real exhibit in the dogshaming gallery. And it's not funny.




Addendum: the twat who runs this blog has put up a message encouraging viewers not to 'waste [their] breath' on criticising the premise of the site. 'Shaming people for shaming dogs is a tad ironic, no?' sayeth the twat. I don't think he/she has a very strong grasp on the location of the irony in this case.

Riding Meat

Horseracing. That's still a thing. Once a year the Grand National happens and Britain's papers  are filled with pictures of women in hats and disingenuous headlines that refer to the death of some horses as a 'Tragedy' despite the fact that it is really more of a Formality, and is anything but unexpected. Two horses were injured so badly they had to be put down at Aintree last weekend; the same thing happened to five horses at Cheltenham last month. This is par for the course.

The races are sick. That's obvious. But the systematic cruelty of the industry behind them is less well-publicised. The champs that get to die at Aintree are only the tip of the iceberg: Around 380 horses can be expected to die each year on courses or in training, and around 2,000 will be slaughtered before that stage if their bodies are found to be 'unsuitable' -  sometimes it's hard to be a woman. I mean horse. In terms of inhumanity and waste, horseracing can be compared to factory farming, but this isn't for food, it's for fun.


The Grand National has been adapting the courses a little bit to try and cut down on the corpse-count, but since everything about horseracing is cruel, the practice should be scrapped, not reformed. Inbreeding and the stresses of jumping over fences (a noble cause!) leave the majority of racehorses with conditions including gastric ulcers and bleeding lungs. And as this report explains, vivisection is being used as a method of finding solutions to this problem. Inflicting suffering to  find a cure for suffering that is completely unnecessary. If we don't allow fox-hunting or bullfighting, then why is this bloodsport still legal?

Especially considering the only part most people are interested in is Ladies' Day. Hooray for an opportunity to call women fillies and pore over photos of them while saying how stupid they look! And people pay to be treated like that. Fair enough if they enjoy themselves, though they might have a rethink if we renamed the event Whoresracing, and laid bets on who would turn up the least dressed and orange-est. I'm not sure if the people who make the Telegraph's Worst Dressed List get taken out and shot, but it would be keeping with the spirit of the occassion.

Hey vivisectionists, why so tense?

"Why don't you make your blog about something interesting, like vegetarian recipes? That way,  people might read it."


"Shut up, Mum."



Two good things happened last month. I mean, good in my opinion: Wales decided to scrap its proposed badger cull, and it was revealed that all relevant ferry companies and 64 airlines are refusing to import lab-animals to Britain. This has happened as a result of what the BUAV refer to as 'reasoned argument allied to letter writing by our hundreds of thousands of supporters.' On the other hand, ex-Labour Minister Lord Drayson said that medical research was being 'choked off' by 'extremists' who target 'weak links' in the chain of the animal-transporting industry. The violence of Drayson's language suggests a campaign of intimidation of which no evidence is provided, but it is clear that the pro-vivisection movement feels threatened.


Writing on the 14th of March, respectively for the Times and the Guardian, Drayson and the BUAV's Michelle Thew both claimed (in Drayson's words) to be  'speaking out for science and democracy.' Both plausibly claimed to have public opinion behind them: given this country's conflicted attitude to animal welfare, it isn't difficult to believe that the majority of people are 'against causing suffering to lab animals' but in favour of animal research.

The benefits of animal testing are also debatable. Some scientists argue that it is the only way to ascertain  the effect of medication on an entire body, not just specific cells; others consider it to be increasingly outmoded and ineffective in the treatment of human bodies. What I take from Drayson's article, in which he claims that the loss of just 1% of Britain's lab animals will directly and definitely cause 'more people to suffer and die', is the sort of sensationalism and emotional blackmail that is stereotypically the domain of animal rights activists.


Here is a selection of responses to Thew's article from the Guardian online comments section.


"This fluffy bunny flim flam attitude doesn't help anyone."


"Perhaps if you spent a little more time paying attention in Science lessons, and a little less going "Awwww, look at the little fuzzy-wuzzy... he's so cuuuuute" you'd realise..."


"You are regarded as nutters by the large majority of the population."


 "Is it only the fluffy ones you want to protect?"


"I once asked one of these anti-testing loonies who she'd save from a burning house first: a child or a mouse."


"God, I lived with one of these anti-vivisection loonies at university. They are so unpleasant...muchelle, we need to experiment on animals to save lives. I hope that you refuse any treat for any illnes or disease you have in the future. If not, you are a hypocrite like PETA's vice-president because she uses insulin, a medication derived from animal testing."

Well, I've got hurt feelings.



I've chosen the most extreme and least fair responses to show that the tactics of hysteria and intimidation can be found on both sides of the vivisection argument. I also feel these remarks demonstrate the problems that rational animal rights campaigners have in being taken seriously. The trolls quoted above rely on dismissing both the value of animal lives and the intelligence of anybody who cares about them.


Why do they get so angry? Well, if they believe in the medical efficacy of animal testing, fair enough.  No one likes cancer, heart disease or Alzheimers, no one wants to pass up any chances of finding cures. But the aggression shown towards people who are really only encouraging progress - focusing on the development of humane and accurate research, moving on from the brutal techniques of the past - seems to me like a sign of cowardice. These commentators, whose general attitude is basically considered normal and not 'unpleasant', refuse debate, and, by belittling the motivations of anti-vivisectionists, close their eyes to the full moral difficulty of the animal rights question.


Some people are frightened of widening the boundaries of ethical responsibility. Making decisions is much easier if we focus solely on human needs, to the exclusion of animal welfare. It is as natural to do that as it is to prioritise people's immediate comfort over the protection of the environment, or people close to us over people we don't know. Campaigns like the BUAV's threaten the progress of medical research, in its current models. They demand change and development in social, scientific and humanitarian practices. It is a daunting prospect.

In the Loophole

Part One

2012 looks like it’s going to be a good year for broken promises. Back in July 2011, when this blog and I were young, Lynne Featherstone made and later reaffirmed a pledge to ban the practice of animal testing in the making of household products. This story, like most animal-related policies, floated briefly into the media’s field of vision like a dead fish bobbing to the ocean’s surface before sinking away to rot in obscurity. Now it transpires that the government is considering weakening its policy by permitting manufacturers to use ingredients that have been tested on animals, so that the ban will only apply to finished household products.

This government seems to have settled nicely into a long-beloved paradigm for dealing with animal rights: make a pledge, wait a bit, then break it, or introduce a loophole so big that there’s more hole than law. In March 2010 Featherstone stated in Parliamentary Questions that the ban would apply both to finished products and all ingredients, ‘although in practice mainly the latter are tested’, so she can hardly be unaware of the extremity of the planned betrayal. Animal testing will insinuate itself into the household cleaning industry in much the same way that eggs from battery farms have been allowed into the market through the back door, as ‘liquid’ ingredients, even while the ‘solid’ products can’t legally be sold.

Cameron’s government shows an incredibly healthy lack of respect for the birds and the beasts, as well as the British voter: neither its own laws nor public opinion (about battery farming, vivisection or, for example, Andrew Lansley’s death-and-glory healthcare reforms) will stop them from doing exactly what they want, which apparently is to destroy every form of welfare. If you can think of one nice thing that this government does, please send your answer to me on a postcard.


Part 2

I am exaggerative, but it’s fair to say that the majority of elected representatives seem to be actively against most measures in favour of animal welfare. The movement for banning animal-tested cosmetics is not controversial, but it is embattled. A law banning it, agreed on in 1993 and meant to be put in effect in 1998 was delayed first to 2000, then to 2002, and now its promised fulfilment in 2013 looks likely to be delayed by another 10 years. This issue is currently in the hands of John Dalli, European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy, who in 2011 told the Humane Society that he ‘would not commit to supporting a legislative ban on selling animal tested cosmetics.’

Supporting measures like this is not worth a politician’s effort, because it alienates businesses while gaining no significant political rewards, and backtracking generates little scandal. The impermeability of the British media to animal rights can be demonstrated by the fact that an open letter to Dalli from Leona Lewis, sent on Valentine’s Day and asking him to support the ban, barely got any attention. Leona Lewis! Don’t pretend you don’t know who she is. I certainly do.

The question is, can anything save the Humane Society’s ‘Cruelty-free 2013’ campaign if celebrities can’t? They’ve got some really good ones – even Ricky Gervais has taken time out from calling people mongs to fight the good fight. The government isn’t interested, the media isn’t interested – perhaps the public isn’t very interested either. But I’m not the first one to be troubled by the arrogance that leads politicians to break promises, not in the face of overwhelming necessity, but simply because they know they can get away with it.

Unapologetic: Ricky Gervais is not ashamed of his third nipple.

Chicken Out

I never bother  with New Year's Resolutions; rules are made to be broken. A pledge that is already wavering this January is the one made by the European Union in 1998 to phase out the use of battery cages for hens by 2012. They were laudably unambitious; they gave themselves 13 years to do it in. Nevertheless, it recently transpired that 15 member states are still failing to comply with the  new regulations. I'd like to be surprised, but I can't be bothered.

There's been a bit of squabbling between states: speaking to BBC1, David Cameron made the querulous accusation that the rest of Europe is undercutting British farmers by continuing to favour cheap cruelty over expensive renovations, which drive up prices. Then it turned out that up to 500,000 hens in the UK are still kept in battery cages, and that Agriculture Minister Jim Paice doesn't see fit to do much about it.

                                                              (Jim Paice)

Interviewed on Farming Today, he said that since the offending farmers will be unable to sell their produce as 'shell' eggs (there is no formal system to prevent them selling eggs to manufacturers who will use them in other products - 'liquid' eggs) they will be unable to turn a good profit, and therefore will have to fall in line. He said he sees no reason to take immediate legal action to penalise these farmers, despite David Cameron's threats that Britain would take other EU countries to court if they 'don't put in place the changes they've signed up to.'

Paice has also spoken of a voluntary agreement made by certain manufacturers not to buy battery eggs, a choice which can be supported at the consumer level. Mr Paice clearly adheres to the popular fallacy that the market can look after our morals. This is demonstrably shaky thinking, and Britain is a very good example of the way it doesn't work. The British, bless us, are quite nice about animals; whereas in Mediterranean Europe no one gives a shit, the British hate the idea of battery farming, and 1% of us even believe that it is a legal requirement that hens listen to 4 hours of classical music each day to chill them out, presumably having confused chickens with Inspector Morse. But if the British heart is soft, the British wallet is stingy, and people will gravitate towards cheaper products  without even thinking about the dirty backstory behind cheaper bacon or eggs. In general, we need laws to do the right thing for us, and these laws should be stringently applied. Jim Paice may be right about renegade farmers being forced into compliance by financial concerns, but it would be neater and quicker and more convincing if he would prosecute people who are breaking the law.


One last thing:

It seems incredibly difficult to implement the smallest change. The truth is that the new regulations achieve relatively little, even when they are in place. The new type of crate will give hens perching and scratching places, but will still provide less usable space  per hen than an A4 sheet of paper. Battery farming is not dead; it is 'enriched'. If you are enriched, buy only RSPCA-approved, free-range eggs.  If you are not very rich, I don't know, have some cake. Unless it has battery liquid egg in it.

                            Don't trust him, chicken. He's not your friend.