Last week, I dived into some dusty old drives to look at my notes on 'Petspiracy', the name I gave to an issue I personally feel needs far more airtime. The proliferation of pets in our societies, primarily dogs and cats, seems uniquely a cause for concern to me. Several years ago, I started working on a blueprint for awareness raising on this issue. Back then, apparently for a lack of time, I dropped it and turned my attention to a related, more publicly palatable initiative which became Climate Pets.
These notes, though, have whet my appetite - I enjoyed re-reading them. I hope you will enjoy them too!
Petspiracy Reflections, January 2022
Over the last months, I’ve continued to develop the concept of ‘Petspiracy’. it’s gone through a couple of different names and different stages of development, but now I seem quite stuck.
Back in early Autumn, I ventured the idea, almost comically, to various friends. The reaction I got was similarly comic. No one really took it seriously.
As I travelled around Europe in November, I started sharing with many of these same friends a simple PowerPoint deck that highlighted just some of the environment and ethical concerns which pet keeping poses. It also highlighted the extent and rapid growth of the pet industry, which alone offers pause (paws?) for consideration.
I returned to the UK emboldened by the idea that this concept could change minds; that this really was a subject people simply hadn’t considered. There, I thought, is an opportunity.
My planning for a kind of ‘anti-pet’ campaign outlined a few key areas, such as pooling all existing literature together, commissioning research into further subject matters yet undiscovered, and of course some form of civil society organising. I also had a sense that the vegan community would be a great place to start: where an already sensitive audience seems not to have extended their principles in this obvious direction.
In December, I conducted a field experiment to harvest the opinions of animal rights activists and vegans participating through various forums and social media pages: Facebook groups and Reddit. I created 2 petitions on change.org, one with a radical message for the abolition of pets; the other with a softer message focused more on subtle change. The response was powerful. Not only did hundreds of people comment, but these communities demonstrated at least to me a real lack of empathy towards pets as beings living in non-consensual relationships in human-made environments.
But that’s kind of where everything ground to a halt. I’m now not at all sure how to take this forward. Every day I see pets, read something, talk to someone recycling the same information I have compiled over the last months, and… that’s it.
I’m surprised at how simply I think ‘pet logic’ can be overturned. The questions are always the same: what would you do about all the animals alive now? What do you think about rescue animals? What about support animals? We’ve bred them like this: isn’t it unfair to release them into the wild? Shouldn’t we be focusing on more serious issues, such as industrial farming? My dog/cat loves being with me, how do you know they don’t? Isn’t it as bad, then, to have a baby. They also don't choose to be born - would you get rid of babies too?
While many of these questions can be sensibly and simply riposted, I’m still faced with this growing, overburdening shock at what’s going on here! What’s happening, and what no one is talking about! There are dogs and cats I see every day, pulled on leads and forced to wear human-like clothing. There is obsessive language that brings pets increasingly into the family sphere; there are rising costs for medical care and pet insurance; there seem to be ever more pet shops selling a variety of pointless goods; there are animals kept alone in apartments at the whim of owners as they go to work; 50% of all homes keep a pet for no better reason than liking the idea of something to care for, and something to love them; there is a manipulation of natural animal behaviour to be understood as unabashed signs of love (purring, licking etc.); there is ever-rising prices for special kinds of dog and cat food that cost the earth.
All of this may not be important on its own, but each of these acts intersects with other key philosophical, social and environmental issues: land use, speciesism, climate change, industrial animal killing: yet pets seem to be exempt of any critique. They have someone earned (if unwillingly!) an indisputable place in our homes and lives.
An example of the massive impact pets have is in the meat industry, where up to 20% of meat consumed is actually fed to pets, leading to billions of animals slaughtered just to feed… the animals we purportedly love. Another example is how the increase in spending on pets constitutes (a purely luxury item) takes away from general spending on other critical social matters, such as poverty and inequality. In fact, charitable giving to animals is the largest segment in the UK, and the vast majority is going to pet charities: these are industries that only exist due to the prevalence of pets in need, which in turn is a result of pet-keeping as a lifestyle. Pets - it seems to me - are a kind of capital drain which offers a mindless way for growing middle classes to keep consuming: to the detriment of the environment and their fellow humans.
Many more such arguments can be brought to the fore that point to how pet-keeping is not an innocent act, but rather the product of strong industries, marketing, growing social isolation from families and other negative social trends, coming at a real cost.
That cost has not fully been accounted for. And it angers me!
So, what’s next? How can I take this forward? I could just start writing, explaining my arguments and bringing in extra sources. I could publish these as soon as they’re ready, or speak them into a camera or microphone as a podcast. This would allow me to vent, but what I write could come across as unstructured, criticisable, and juvenile. There also wouldn’t be a bank of information (at least not initially) to draw on. The other issue is time: I feel like I don’t have the time to focus on this right now.
