Pet adoption from an animal rescue shelter would seem to be one of those indisputable things in life that only increases a person's positive karma. Kant spoke of morality residing in a good will and pure intention; saving a dog from being euthanized by providing it with a loving, secure home seems the living embodiment of that. Or so it would seem.
In a recent book entitled Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living (Thames and Hudson, 2009), co-authors Robert and Brenda Vale from New Zealand's Victoria University argue dogs, as carnivorous gluttons, are an environmental nightmare. Pursuing research that showed meat production leaves a tremendous carbon footprint, the Vales found that a medium-sized dog consumes about 360 lbs. of meat and 250 lbs. of cereal a year. This amounts to a carbon footprint of 2.07 acres – twice that of a Hummer driving 6,200 miles per year (and that includes the energy expended in building the behemoth). Even the finicky cat has a surprisingly negative impact according to the Vales, architects who specialize in sustainable housing. They report the cat's ecoprint is the equivalent of ‘slightly less than driving a Volkswagen Golf for a year.’
The Vales argue that domestic dogs and cats ‘devastate wildlife, spread disease and pollute waterways.’ They offer as proof the 7.7 million cats in Britain that hunt and eat an average of 25 birds, mammals and frogs each; that adds up to a whopping 188 million animals killed a year. Furthermore, all that dog waste in our neighborhoods pollutes local waterways and kills aquatic life. ‘A lot of people worry about having SUVs but don't worry about having Alsatians,’ explains Brenda Vale, ‘What we're saying is, well, maybe you should because the environmental impact … is comparable.’ Even the lowly household goldfish is reported to have an ecoprint that's equal to two cell phones.
Rather than painting a completely bleak picture of modern pet ownership, the Vales offer some helpful suggestions if you are determined to keep at least Fluffy. Curbing a pet's protein rich diet, they advise, would lessen the environmental impact, like feeding your cat fish heads supplied by the local fishmonger. But the best way to offset the pet carbon print according to the Vales is to choose a ‘dual purpose companion’ like a hen who produces eggs for human consumption. Or bunnies, they recommend (without a hint of humor), ‘provided you eat them …’ (The Vales appear unclear on the traditional concept of pet ownership, which doesn't usually end in a meal.)
Some die-hard vegetarians have attempted to rectify the situation by making their pets vegetarian like themselves. The internet is full of sites dedicated to recipes for preparing your own vegetarian and vegan dog food. Considering that dogs are carnivorous, this practice ultimately solves nothing and only raises a host of other philosophical questions: Is it the height of hubris and anthropomorphism to force another species to adopt our diet? Must we demand that our domesticated animals reflect our political affiliations? Is it possible for a dog to live immorally?
One of the goals of the field of animal ethics and activism is to give purpose and direction to our historically fraught relationship with non-human animals. Agreeing we have a moral obligation to the non-human world, animal activism can be broken down loosely into two different philosophies: animal welfare and animal rights. Animal welfare tends to focus its activism on ensuring the animals in our lives are treated well, that laws are in place to protect them (like laws regarding animal abuse or factory farming). Animal rights advocacy, on the other hand, is interested in giving all animals autonomy from human intervention and, in some cases, autonomy from even human interaction. As Lee Hall explains in her book Capers in the Churchyard (Nectar Bat Press, 2006), ‘… the most comprehensive of rights would mean freedom from being the object of popular curiosity; and more; it would mean regaining the freedom from being subjected to our notions of civilization entirely’(p. 54).
In this context, an animal rights supporter like Hall would discourage feeding a pet a diet that adheres to our own personal politics of vegetarianism/environmentalism and (perhaps, surprisingly) likely support the idea of allowing a carnivorous animal like a dog to eat meat. With attempts to protect animals' uninterrupted lives comes the recognition that, left to their own devices, they eat each other. That wouldn't necessarily entail supporting factory farms – businesses that have been summarily condemned by everyone from PETA to American food journalist Michael Pollan. Meat scraps from sustainable and individual pig, cow and chicken farmers is one possibility.
But proponents of animal rights regard this as a temporary solution at best, agreeing with the Vales that domesticated pets ultimately pose a negative impact on the environment. Indeed, they take it a step further by advocating a gradual demise to the practice of domesticating animals at all. That is, debating what we feed our pets may be a temporary problem if the very existence of domesticated cats and dogs eventually disappear. Animal rights activists argue pet domestication is yet another way humanity interferes with animals (through breeding and training) to suit our ends and not theirs. True non-interference, they claim, means we begin to recognize animals aren't here for our amusement, whether through circuses or pet ownership. The fact that we have bred animals over thousands of years to accept and even enjoy this arrangement is beside the point. The desire for companionship is not moral grounds for interfering with another species.
In February of 2010, the car manufacturer General Motors announced it would discontinue the controversial brand Hummer after a deal fell through with a Chinese manufacturer. If, conceptually, animal rights proponents are right that our basic ethical obligation towards animals is, in the words of US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, ‘the right to be left alone,’ dogs and Hummers may be alike in more ways than one.
