We recently welcomed Rose-Ellen Kane, who is studying to become a lawyer at Quinnipiac University, as one of our law clerks. Today she responded to a staff meeting request that we all think of ideas for social media posts and articles for The Center’s monthly newsletter (scroll to the bottom to sign up!). She circulated an article to all of us about how Missouri now makes it a more serious crime, and penalty, if someone kills a police dog. On its face, this certainly seems like a good idea, right?
Here are my thoughts to a staff who constantly ponder how we can best achieve the purpose we are together for, and my thanks to Rose-Ellen for her infectious inquisitiveness, which is key to our understanding and progress:
“From an animal rights perspective, what this brings to mind is that Connecticut and other jurisdictions, like Missouri, often have steeper penalties for animal abusers of police dogs, as if those who harm those dogs, versus any dog, should be punished more harshly, or that these dogs are “worth more” than another dog. Of course I don’t agree because all dogs have value and making some more valuable than others because of what they do for humans does nothing to advance the value and rights of all dogs. On the contrary, by putting a premium on those dogs who help humans, the focus becomes the humans and not the dogs, and that is not how the valuation of dogs is ever going to grow.
Laws also occasionally make exceptions of steeper penalties for harm to service animals, which of course is focused on the human and not the animal. This is the reason animals have no rights, because since man got off four legs, animals have been subservient to the needs (i.e. food) and desires (i.e. entertainment) of humans and have been accordingly deprived of their own status and rights to live freely from the literal slavery they endure in a human world.
What this also raises in the larger and philosophical sense is the ultimate issue in the fight for the rights of animals: what value they are afforded in our society and thus under the law. Simply put, if we valued them more, these incredible living creatures, who have protective fathers, mothers who nurture their young and children who help form a familial bond, wouldn’t be subjected to a life that is often cut short by humans’ callous, and really selfish, power to dispose of them as they wish.
Often the rights of companion animals arise indirectly. For example, when pet trust laws were passed in now 43 states, the law took a step toward expanding the rights of animals, although this was certainly not the basis for passing any of these state statutes, which were instead driven by humans’ desire to be able to care for their own property, or their pets. However, the beneficiary of a pet trust is in fact the pet, and if the trustee of the pet trust absconds with the trust funds, who is damaged and therefore has the “right” under the law to sue the trustee for the damages they incurred? The beneficiary of course, and in these instances that beneficiary with rights is the companion animal. So in a very real sense, the rights of a beneficiary under the laws of trusts and fiduciary obligations was expanded to include animal beneficiaries as well. Who’d a thunk it.
Additionally, animal abuse laws make it a crime to harm a companion animal, which therefore indirectly recognizes the “right” of these animals not to be harmed. Humans of course have the right not to be harmed, but through the animal abuse statutes in every state, animals have this “right” as well.
But the underpinning of the predicament for the treatment of companion animals in all legal perspectives is always the valuation society and the law affords them. Because the law values them as it does,
1. Historically, ½ of the people arrested for animal abuse had their cases dropped, and even today too many are merely slapped on the wrist for causing irrefutable harm and death;
2. On the civil law side of things, harm and death to animals, from veterinarians, boarders, groomers and the like, result in damages awards which are basically equivalent to the market value of the animal ($50-$300 for a rescued pound animal?), unlike the emotional distress and pain & suffering damages humans are awarded when they are harmed, as this is what makes those damage awards substantial because of course we value human life and not an animal’s;
3. The law recognizes the value of children to their parents or guardians, and if there are two guardians who seek possession of the child, the law allows courts to award permanent joint custody because the children are valued so highly – this is not the case with dogs and cats.
4. The laws regarding animals are archaic, but not so with the laws regarding humans. For example, animals in every jurisdiction are legally the same as a non-living piece of disposable, easily replaceable, personal property (owned by some human of course and therefore not valued as anything BUT a piece of personal property), which in the broad picture is often close to valueless.
5. Governments have a statutory duty to protect the welfare (feed, house and care for) of children, the elderly, handicapped and the poor, unlike any legal duty they owe to the welfare of animals.
6. Humans kill dogs when they act completely naturally in protecting themselves, their home or their family members in the only way they can communicate their concerns, fears and displeasure (barking, growling and then the death knell for sure, biting).
7. We kill cats (and dogs) merely because there are too many of them. They have no value to prohibit this otherwise. And we claim we are somehow being “humane” when we do it.
8. The list is endless.
I’m not sure how we take something out of the above to draft posts and articles to spread these truths and the need for change, but perhaps it becomes a series discussing where the rights of the animals we work with come from, why these animals have this problem (valuation) and how our work, whether in a dog kill order appeal, pet custody dispute, veterinarian malpractice case or harm to animal case picks away at changing this valuation paradigm, in every courtroom before every judge and every opposing counsel.
Someday.”
