Dogs in the Leisure Experience. Neil Carr

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СКАЧАТЬ 2008; Yabroff et al., 2008; Oka and Shibata, 2009; Reeves et al., 2011). The benefits of dog ownership do not, according to Wood et al. (2007) and Messent (1983), accrue only to the pet owner. Rather, dogs have the potential to facilitate positive social interaction between owners and non-dog owners that benefits the wider society through the development of a sense of community. Such a claim is well known to most dog owners whose animals often act as social lubricants and initiators of conversations with other owners. Such benefits assume that all social interactions between dogs and their owners and others are positive, which, unfortunately, is not the case. Despite this, as long as the positive encounters outweigh the negative ones, then the presence of dogs in society can be argued to be positive for social cohesion. Furthermore, the dog may offer security (which is often more imaginary than real with pet dogs who are as likely to invite a stranger into the house as bark threateningly at one), which can be very important for those living by themselves (Gillespie et al., 1996). Overall, as Rogerson (1991) and Herzog (2010: 68) noted, we: ‘bring animals [and particularly dogs] into our lives because they make us feel ­happier, healthier, and more loved’. The reasons why we bring dogs as pets into our lives undermines the argument that a pet is without function or value; rather they are beyond economic valuing and are certainly not valueless to research either in their own right or in the context of their relations with humans. The result of all these reasons for bringing dogs into our lives is an increasingly close bond between dogs and humans that blurs the distinction between animals and humans and ensures dogs are seen ever more as a member of the family.

      The idea that dogs help to ensure the mental and physical well-being of ­humans, while prominent today, is something that appears to have been in ­existence since at least the medieval era in Europe; then, royalty often kept dogs for the emotional outlet they offered when the humans were faced with the reality of the isolation with which their positions presented them (Kalof, 2007). This just goes to show how ideas, like fashion, come and go and that the current position of the dog is not necessarily the one it will be situated within in the future.

      The term ‘pet’ has developed negative connotations of ownership in recent years, suggesting the animal is owned as an object for the benefit of the human and consequently its rights are not necessarily taken into consideration. As a result, we have seen the emergence of terms such as ‘companion animal’ and ‘pet guardian’. The notion that an animal can be the companion of a human suggests that both actors are in a relationship where if there is not equality there is at least recognition of the rights of both and as such both are empowered. In this sense the relation between dog and human may, in Goffman’s words, be seen as a ‘with’ (Sanders, 1999): a coming together of two sentient beings in a way that in its ideal is mutually beneficial. The problem, as Herzog (2010: 74) saw it is that many pets are not true companions and that really ‘The terms companion animal and pet guardian are linguistic illusions that enable us to pretend we do not own the animals we live with.’

      That not all dogs are treated or viewed in the same way is as apparent today as it has been historically. The medieval royals of Europe who were keeping dogs as emotional confidantes were also keeping dogs for hunting and baiting. Today, we see farmers who keep dogs as tools of work and at the same time have a pet dog who is treated in much the same manner as a huge number of the urban dogs of North America and Western Europe. This inconsistency and how it is justified or explained away will be discussed later in the book.

Current and Historic Scale of the Dog Population

While we may consider the mass ownership of dogs for non-work specific reasons as a relatively modern phenomenon this is not actually the case. Indeed, it has been estimated that by the late 1700s in England approximately 1 million dogs were being kept for reasons other than work (Kalof, 2007). More recent figures regarding dog ownership in the UK are noted in Fig. 1.1, which demonstrates a significant rise in the dog population over the last 50 years to 8.5 million in 2013. The figures for the UK indicate that in 2009 the dog population was spread across 23% of the nation’s households (Australian Companion Animal Council, 2010). There is difficulty in attempting to closely analyse trends in the number of dogs in the UK and elsewhere over time, as the methods employed to estimate the population size have altered. However, it is fair to say that we have witnessed a large increase in the dog population throughout the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st century.

Fig. 1.1. Number of dogs in the UK. (From: Godwin, 1975 (for 1963); Carding, 1975 (for 1966–1973); Pet Food Manufacturers Association, 2010a (for 1965 and 1975–2004); Pet Food Manufacturers Association, 2010b (for 2009–2012) and Pet Food Manufacturers Association, 2010c (for 2013).)

      In 2009, 36% of Australian households were estimated to own at least one dog, with 3.41 million dogs living in the country. It is worth noting, however, that this number has been declining in recent years from a peak of 4 million in 1998. In comparison, in the USA an estimated 40% of households owned one or more dogs in 2009 and there were 77.5 million dogs in the country. These figures were reported to have declined slightly by 2011 when it was estimated that 36.5% of American households owned at least one dog and the total population in the country was approximately 70 million (American Veterinary Medical Association, 2012). Whether these differences represent a decline in dog ownership or are due to differences in the methods used to estimate them is, unfortunately, impossible to say. North of the border in Canada, there are an estimated 84 million dogs; they are now more common than children in Canadian households (Anonymous, 2013b). The number of dogs living in New Zealand is also significant, standing at 700,000 in 2011 and spread across 29% of the nation’s households (New Zealand Companion Animal Council, 2011).

Dogs as Sentient, Self-aware Beings and Their ‘Rights’

      ‘Sentience’ is a term that is inherently biased and as a consequence somewhat limiting when attempts are made to apply it to non-human animals. The reason for this is simply that the term has been constructed by humans and from a human perspective where humans are always at the top of the tree: the hegemonic power. It refers to the ability of animals (human and non-human) to think and undertake reasoned action, and their level of self-awareness. With these concepts comes the view that if something has them then it also must have agency; an ability to self-determine. Implicit to the notion of sentience is that creatures that have it are more than automatons that exist at the behest of biological processes. This suggests there is more to a sentient being than an agglomeration of atoms and chemical reactions. This has been referred to as a consciousness but can, in decidedly non-scientific language, also be referred to as a ‘soul’ (for want of a better word, and not implying any religious affiliation, of which I have none). The debate about whether non-human СКАЧАТЬ