Pets are living Prozac, Montreal Gazette, July 27, 2003

Many questions have been raised by my article "Slaves of our affection", published on July 13. In all fairness a few points need to be clarified.

Let’s start with surgical modification. Although some veterinarians have given up on ear cropping, debarking dogs and declawing of cats, these procedures are still quite common and popular even in countries like Sweden that have outlawed them. Until breed standards change, we will continue to see dogs with cropped ears. Many breeders are now performing these operations themselves or hiring veterinarians to do them.

Declawing is very common in Quebec and elsewhere, even in England which is widely considered to be one of the most animal-loving nations of the world. Some veterinarians specialize in these mutilations. In many areas, you can go to a pet shop and buy a 2 month old cat sterilized, vaccinated and declawed, ready for use. France, which has the highest number of pets per capita in the world, refused to sign the European parliament‘s Charter of Rights for Animals, which proposes a ban on all such mutilations with the exception of neutering and spaying.

The euthanasia methods described in my article are common knowledge. They made the news each time they were discovered. Mr Pierre Barnotti director of the Montreal SPCA and Dr André Dallaire, vice-dean of Quebec’s veterinary college can confirm these facts.

The longevity of pets
Readers also had problems with my comments on pet longevity. The combination of bad genes, (the legacy of intensive inbreeding and production), an awful diet, stressful living conditions, anatomical defects and ignorance can dramatically shorten the lifespan of pets. Those who survive these problems are likely to face euthanasia. Few live long enough to die of old age. In fact, the most likely causes of death in order of importance are:
Acquisition: Death associated with the capture, waiting period, quarantine, shipment, breeding, raising, distribution and sale.
Many Third World countries are being pillaged of their fauna. In the Philippines and Indonesia for example, local fishermen are using massive sub-lethal doses of cyanide to capture seawater fish for the aquarium industry. It is estimated that more than a 1000 tons of this deadly poison, enough to kill 500 million people, has been used in the past decades. The devastation of marine wildlife is immeasurable. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature reports that 30,000 primates, 500,000 parrots, 400 to 500 million aquarium fish, a 1,000 to 2,000 tons of corrals and an unknown number of various endangered reptilian, insect, mammalian and avian species are being traded on the black market. Many more, less threatened by extinction, are traded legally. Half to 90 % of these future members of our families, livestock as they are called by the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Committee, die between capture and distribution. Only 2 % to 16 % of the surviving children manage to live for more than 2 years.

In Quebec, there are roughly 1,800 puppy mills, and as many or more - curiously ignored by animal activists - busy breeding cats, birds, gerbils, rabbits, reptiles, tarantulas or whatever else we use to inject a bit of life and fantasy to our often boring and fastidious lives. Consumers are collectively responsible for the horrors perpetrated in these outfits, many of which operate under concentration-camp conditions. The guilt burden and responsibility is conveniently being shifted to the breeders so that we can all continue loving our pets in peace.

Euthanasia: Pets end up being "put to sleep" in ponds, shelters, veterinary hospitals for a number of reasons:
Genetic problems caused by inbreeding (animal incest) often prompt owners to get rid off their overbred pets. Psychosomatic and psychological problems caused by the stress of captivity and a carefully nurtured dependence - separation anxiety, various phobias and neurosis etc. – often lead to the death chamber too. Pets are also put to sleep because they fall victim to one of the dozens of diseases and conditions brought on by poor nutrition and bad food – diabetes, allergies, bone abnormalities and intestinal problems, as well as thyroid, dental and urinary conditions. While we’re told to reduce cooking times, to eat a variety of fresh foods, to avoid junk food full of chemicals and preservatives and not to eat sweets, the pet food industry with the help of veterinarians has successfully managed to convince us that what is good for us is unhealthy for animals. We have been misled into believing that the insidious poison hidden in an attractive package is better than natural food.

The only advantage of pet food is its convenience. Many people, in fact, would not have animals without this commodity. And probably many more would give up on pets if they knew what was in their diet. Natural foods are never used as controls in the studies on pet disease for good reason - the effects on health would be readily apparent. There are now many books and articles on pet nutrition, the pet food industry and the use of dead dogs and cats in manufacturing pet food. Some suggestions: Francis M.Pottenger M.D, Pottenger’s cats: a study in nutrition, Price-Pottenger Nutrition foundation Inc. Dr Michael W. Fox, Inhumane society, the American way of exploiting animals; New York, St Martin’s Press, 1990; Ann, N. Martin, Foods pets die from: shocking facts about pet food, Oregon, New Sage Press, 1998; Ann N.Martin, Does your pet food bark: a study of the pet food fallacy, Natural Pet Magazine, March-April 1995; Dr Tom Londsdale, Raw Meaty Bones, Pet foods’ insidious consequences (This book can be bought on line at www.rawmeatybones.com); Dr Richard H.Pitcairn and Susan Hubble-Pitcairn, Natural Health for Dogs and Cats, Emmaus (PA.) Rodale press, 1995 (available in most health food stores). The following website is also very interesting: www.purefood.org/madcow. Recycling dead dogs and cats as animal feed has been confirmed in an interview with veterinarian Daniel Barrette, nutrition professor at Quebec’s veterinary college. Most veterinarians can tell you that their freezer full of dead pets is regularly emptied by a rendering company.

There are other reasons why pets are killed too: disappointment with the reality of keeping a pet, ambivalence, lack of know-how; infectious diseases mostly due to bad breeding conditions, a break-down of the immune system due to poor diet and stress; death from anesthesia, post-op and treatment complications, abuse of often ineffective and dangerous vaccines etc.
The toll of these scourges on exotic species recently domesticated on a massive scale – they are as numerous as dogs and cats - is most dramatic. Incapable of adapting to their imposed lifestyle most of them die rapidly. Various breeds of cockatiels for example see their lives amputated by a factor of 6. Budgies, which can live for 18 years rarely reach the age of 6. The fate of the larger breeds of parrots is similar. Other more commonly domesticated species don’t fare much better either. Large breeds of purebred dogs like the Doberman, great Dane, German Shepherd, St-Bernard, Bouvier etc, don’t live for more than 10 to 12 years. The lifespan of the revered English bulldog or the Shar-pei, rarely surpasses 6 to 8 years. Some studies conducted in the 1970s and ‘80s, (curiously to my knowledge never repeated since) have shown that 50 % of dogs and 75 % of cats are less than 3 years old (the equivalent in human years is roughly 26). Half of the cat population is roughly 2 years old. The average age of cats and dogs is around 4 years. Only 5 % of the general population of cats and dogs manages to live for 12 years (65 human years). Only 15 % of riding horses manage to live 15 years. These numbers are quite surprising given that dogs can easily live 20 years, cats 25 and horses 40.

Bad as these numbers are, they are probably understating the case. Flawed studies consistently overestimate the average lifespan of pets. For example:
*Most studies start measuring lifespan from the date of adoption rather than the date of birth, leaving out the thousands of animals who die before they ever find a home;
*The average age of the veterinary patient does not give a reliable estimate of the overall population because many animals never go to the veterinarian and some of those that do go many times during the year artificially boosting the statistics;
*Although there seems to be more elderly animals than ever, there are 10 times more pets than in the fifties.
*There are no records prior to the seventies. It’s therefore impossible to really know if the progress is genuine.
*If you take into account all species of pets combined, in all countries, and not only the more pampered dogs and cats in some of the richer enclaves, you get quite a different picture.
*By artificially decreasing the potential life span you close the gap between life expectancy and the genetic potential creating the illusion that much progress has been made. In fact, no one really knows with certainty the genetic potential life span of any species including humans.
*Some studies are ridden with gross errors of calculation. The lack of rigor seems to be a common flaw according to a British enquiry on veterinary research. Many readers were also angered by my views on zootherapy. Whether we use animals to make our lives more beautiful or joyful, to exercise, to fulfil a neurotic need for power or the image we have of a happy family, we are practicing some form or another of zootherapy. The idea of animal-assisted therapy was invented in the sixties by a New York Psychiatrist named Boris Levinson, can therefore simply be defined as the interaction with a pet. It’s not something reserved for the elderly or handicapped as most vets want us to believe. In fact, 50 to 60 per cent of the population of rich Western countries are doing it. In the fifties, pets were not so popular. People had dogs or cats mostly for practical reasons like hunting mice, guarding the house against predators or herding sheep or cattle for instance.

Loss of community

For many, industrialization and urbanization have meant increasing loneliness and isolation, a dull life, a lack of a meaningful, dignified, interesting and vital occupation (like making food or building a house for example), alienation from nature, a loss of community and growth of consumerism and pets have been seen as the perfect remedy for these social ills. "A solution we would have to invent if it didn’t already exist", claims Michel Pepin, a leading member of the Académie de Médecine Vétérinaire du Québec (AMVQ). Zootherapy has become the leitmotiv of the pet animal industry.

Zootherapie Quebec, a group of psychologists and veterinarians who specialize in animal-assisted therapy, promotes the use of pets with mottos like "To live without an animal! Don’t think of it! An animal is indispensable!"

Pets appear to be becoming a necessity rather than a luxury, as the therapeutic, emotional and social role of pets expands. "As family, neighbor, and community bonds diminish, the family-pet-veterinary bond is strengthening", writes American veterinarian Marty Becker in an article titled "Celebrating the relationship between people, pets, and their veterinarian". Notice the clever ploy of associating family with pet and veterinarian. Is it any wonder that no family today is pictured without a dog, often a golden retriever.

Even the SPCA, bought it, no questions asked… So what’s the problem? It’s in what we're not being told. Dr David T. Allen, an American epidemiologist, has reviewed more than a 1000 studies concerning pets and health in the literature databases of medical care, nursing, psychology and veterinary medicine. His conclusions: "I was not able to find one study that described gains versus losses in the health status of society as the result of human-canine interactions; in other words, I did not find articles that compared the magnitude of the effects of the case or cases cited with a non-exposed control group or the universe". Most reports describing the effects of human-canine interactions are at the bottom of the scale used to measure scientific validity (ie. descriptive studies and expert opinion).

If you think taking the dog out on a walk for example is good for your heart think again. A recent study has shown that because of the frequent pit stops along the way, the cardiovascular function does not improve. Pseudoscience is the right word for zootherapy, a poorly documented treatment for the fever and not for the disease. The prevalence of pets in rich, industrialized societies is, in fact, one of many indicators of major social problems. Animals are being used as living Prozac, a kind of tranquilizer to ease the chronic ills of life in a decadent society. But they’re not curing anything. It’s a con. On the contrary, avoiding your problems just makes them worse. If pets are that good for us why are 70 % of owners getting rid of them within 2 years? Because they’re more trouble than they’re worth. How many more feel obliged, out of moral duty and guilt, to endure for years an impossible or unsatisfying relationship?

We shouldn’t be asking why pets are good for us but rather why we have so many of them, why we think its alright to abandon our parents in retirement homes with just a poodle to console them? Is this fixation on pets a symptom of deeper social problems like loneliness, self-insufficiency, anthropocentrism, compulsiveness and homelessness ?

Through this apparently innocent fad, we are in fact condoning the use of bogus quick-fix "solutions" instead of confronting the real issues: a social system unfit for humans. When we teach children that it is normal to separate animals from their ecosystem and remove their freedom, we are telling them that it is normal to make slaves out of those we love. By condoning the pleasures and privileges of the abuse of power we are in fact cultivating a deeply incrusted insensitivity not only towards animals and nature but towards our own kind.

At this point in time when we are finally coming to terms with the inconsistencies and flaws of our lifestyle, when we are urgently trying to save the environment and preserve the biodiversity we need in order to survive, this attitude is quite destructive. Under the cover of innocence a grave assault on humankind is taking place.