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Hello, and welcome to Humanities Matter, brought to you by Brill. I am Emily Tampkin, and this week we will be looking at key issues in the field of humanities. I'm speaking today with Dr. Candice Growny.
She is the Director of the Center for Animal Welfare Science at Purdue University. Candice, thank you so much for speaking with me today. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to talk to you.
And we're going to be talking about your article, turning up the volume on man's best friend, ethical issues associated with commercial dog reading. It's in the Journal of Applied Animal Ethics research. Obviously, people, not all people, but the correct people, love dogs and have, you know, altered opinions on dogs informed by academics and science and their own opinions. How did you decide to enter that debate with this paper?
How did you decide to write this paper? Well, I haven't been in research with these dogs for about some years. Before I started doing the work, I had probably the same reservations about large-scale dog greeting as anybody else. And in fact, the only term I knew was the one we used in the US, my females.
And I didn't want to get involved with any sort of research that potentially could be used to sort of benefit that kind of dog greeting, because I don't agree with it. But I was approached by several commercial breeders and it became really clear that they understood that people were not happy with what they were doing, but they really didn't understand why. And these were primarily Amish breeders by virtue of the fact that our communities are fairly isolated. And in terms of their education and access to education and just based on their culture, they're not on the internet.
They are not going to college and not taking courses in ethics and animal welfare. And so having learned that, I thought it was important to visit with these folks and to at least try to learn a little bit about what they were doing and why they had taken approaches that they did. And it was following that meeting where I was a little ashamed of the level of judgment I walked into the meeting with that I thought, yeah, I'll help because in honesty, they really were asking for help to do better. They just really didn't know what they needed to do or how they needed to do it.
So we began doing research in our channels, just to give a sense of what the welfare status of the dogs was really like. And prior to doing that very early in starting that work, I had done this sort of cursory moral deliberation about commercial breeding, which I had learned was different from what people are really envisioning when they talk about puppy mills. Although it can be hard, depending on the level to which a breeder operates, to distinguish between a licensed USDA licensed commercial breeder and what the average person might envision as a puppy mill. And so having done that cursory review, I thought there seems to be a way to think about the harms that are done relative to the potential benefits.
And having done that analysis, I thought it was okay to at least start exploring this work, along as I kept myself honest along the way. So when Brill offered me and others the opportunity to contribute to a special edition of the journal, I thought this is the topic I want to write about. And because by that point, we had some of the years of research directly with these channels, I thought I'd integrate the science with the ethical deliberation. And again, the thing that was really fascinating to me is this sort of tension between the idea that we really love dogs and think of them as family members, so many of us.
And yet we'll do really interesting, inconsistent things in order to get access to dogs and to produce dogs. So I thought I wanted to explore that a little bit and then think about what is it that we really owe to dogs and why is this topic so contentious? And so let's talk a little bit more about that because you're speaking about this tension between our lover dogs and their friend and their part of the family. But this is not how you treat your family members in some cases, right?
These are not the kind of moral justifications that you make. So when you write in the piece, I'm just going to re-line quote, among the most significant ethical problems embedded in commercial dog greeting are the potential for insults to the human dog bond and quote, could you speak a bit more about that line about what you mean by that? Sure. Well, as you point out, when we talk about dogs and think about them as if not family members and certainly very close friends, right?
That comes with a sense of obligation and a sense of connection that is a little bit different from some of the other animals we might see in our everyday lives, right? So many of us will have the pleasure of interacting to a certain degree with animals that we see in our backyards, right? Swirls, birds, rabbits, this time of year in the US anyway. And we may like them and we may want to, you know, on some level hope that all is going well for them.
But when we start thinking about animals is really our friends and family. There's a different level of investment, emotional investment that we have in them and certainly investment in their well-being, right? And with that, as we become closer to these animals, as we feel certain level of connection with them, there becomes this sort of bond that is formed where we are interdependent, right? And some of that sort of mutualistic relationship involves us doing right by the animals because they are giving something to us that is equally beneficial and helpful to us.
And so with this sort of long history we have with dogs, the long history of the investigation and independence we have on them, it's inevitable that we form these bonds with them, at least in Western developed countries where dogs are considered companions if nothing else. And so it was interesting to me that there is this possibility that you could be breeding dogs, breeding them in large numbers, and potentially not even attending to the fact that they are sentient animals, that they have sort of needs and interests of their own. And part of those needs and interests that seem to have developed the dogs includes this need to interact very specifically with humans, right? And to seek us out and to form relationships with us that then further reinforce and set the groundwork for this bond that we typically, those of us who love dogs and share lives with them tend to develop.
It is just a little odd to be having a form of dog breeding where for instance, we're breeding dogs that don't necessarily have predestined holes that we haven't really thought about where these dogs are going to go once they potentially leave these kennels. And maybe they're being sold to people who are impulse buy and people who are not taking the time to learn and research and invest in the dogs themselves so that they're well set up to come into homes that are prepared for them, where they can do well, where they can do lifelong companions. And that's problematic because if people don't have that investment, if they don't have that strong connection, and I don't know that they do what they don't, but let's pretend that they don't, then what it sets dogs up for is people being dissatisfied with them in homes, them potentially being surrendered, rehomed, sometimes abandoned, and absolutely that is a traumatic destruction of whatever bond might have been formed or was beginning to be formed with that animal. There's also the concern that when you're raising dogs in large volume, their individual needs and interests might not be getting attended to.
And then what's the quality of the interactions that those dogs have with their caretakers and what happens to them at the end of their breeding careers, right? So then really sort of naturally lent itself into not just what does this mean for breaches or at least failures to launch the human dog on, but then really what does it mean for the fate of the dog itself? And if you are thinking about dogs as friends and family, you can't leave that question unanswered. Completely.
No, I'm having this conversation with you sitting on my couch next to my dog who was abandoned and rescued. I guess so I certainly appreciated the thought that went into that answer. And before I let you go, you've outlined some of the problems with the current system for us, and you talk in the piece about finding an ethical alternative for commercial dog breeding, and I was hoping that you might speak a bit about what that might look like. Certainly.
So when I talk in the article about commercial dog breeding and obviously the outcome of the essay, which really was intended to not be some sort of backwards justification of the work we're doing, it really was done sincerely. It was clear to me that when I look at all of the criticisms and all of the potential problems that are embedded in commercial dog breeding, the one issue that stands out is this. We have sold the human animal bond so much. People sold off dogs.
There's a giant demand for dogs that when you look at what's happening in the United States today, when you look at all of the potential models for predicting the number of dogs we need in the US on an annual basis simply to meet the demands that there are. Small scale breeders, shelters and rescues cannot meet those needs. And so the question then became, if we absolutely abhor puppy males, and again, I'll be absolutely clear, I'm in that camp myself, and there's a way to clue a distinguished commercial dog breeding, which is simply large scale breeding that is regulated, which in and of itself is different from running a puppy mill, which is potentially entirely unregulated, and where the focus is solely on the profit, not on the dog itself, there's no attention paid to welfare. And the question becomes, can you come up with an alternative that helps to meet demand for dogs on a much larger scale that is also aligned with at least a reasonable and visible set of effects, right?
And so for me, the way to think about that, because I do not have a magic answer to this question, I think if I did or anyone else, they would certainly be proposing it all across the board. But I think one thing that could actually be done is to think about where there are clear welfare infringements on the dogs, where the dogs interests and needs are clearly not being there, and where those areas can be identified, and I think we have identified some of them, really strategically targeting what can be done to address those substantively. And so I think what that looks like really involves a thought process where we actually engage dog readers in commercial kennels as sort of allies and advocates in creating a more ethical form of breeding, right? And so that involves realizing and communicating everything we know about what is wonderful about dogs, what we know they need to do well, to thrive, in fact, to be good, lifelong companions, and really refocusing our effort on what is good for the dog, not just what is good for economics, because we don't want to take about it, this is a business, right?
But I think you could actually do that. So I think it begins with one changing the mindset that the dog is the priority, right? And if that can't be front and center, then maybe this isn't the sort of industry that you ought to participate in, if that really can't be your number one priority, right? The businesses there and obviously the business has to work because if it doesn't, it's never good for the welfare outcomes anyway.
So part of it is really thinking about how to change the attitudes and the mindsets and so on of breeders or build on what is there already that works in this regard. And then it really starts to look like breeders becoming more thoughtful and informed. And many of them to be fair actually are, I was surprised to find that, I think it's important to say they do exist. But really it involves invoking this idea that we've got to select dogs for what it is we want them to do.
And that is for most of us to be really safe, desirable, good long-term companions who do well in their homes and who won't cause problems out in communities that they live in, right? And so it looks like breeders really working together to meet much higher standards of welfare than take into consideration the dog's physical needs, her behavioral needs, and really her genetic welfare because that is incredibly important. And we want to maintain genetic diversity within these dogs because we know that is good for their overall population health, right? So all of those factors have to go in.
I think it also involves breeders being willing to be much more transparent about their practices. I think it involves ensuring that dogs are thought out and cared for appropriately and to an appropriately high standard from the time that they're born and even before that in terms of planning letters. And through the time that they retire from their breeding careers and then are ideally humanely re-homed because convenience in euthanasia is no way ethically justifiable. And then, and this is going to be a little out there, it involves screening buyers, right?
So even if you're raising dogs in larger volume, you can do your due diligence in terms of asking where your dogs are going, working with the venues that you sell to your dogs to, if you don't sell directly to the public, to make sure that those buyers are being screened to be a good match for the dogs, to be responsible for the dogs. And like small-scale breeders, making sure that you have a policy that if someone is not happy with your dog, they start a contract that they have to return it to. Because that puts the onus on you as a breeder, even a large-scale breeder, to meet your obligations to dogs for their entire life. It also sends a different message to the public as in these dogs are not just widgets to the breeders who produce them.
They're invested in them, they care what happens to them, they want to know what happens to them. And if something goes well, they want to make sure their dogs come back to them so they're careful, right? And you know, ideally, I think what really at the end of the day comes down to a major part of the problem, it's the idea that if you do these things to do them organically, breeders ultimately have to make the decision, do you want to have smaller kennels or do you want to hire more help to really address the needs and interests of the dogs themselves? And in fact, many breeders that we work with have decided that no thing to do is to scale back and then produce a better quality dog, not just more dogs, right?
And so I think there are many aspects of smaller-scale breeding that can be incorporated. There are many sort of ethical thought processes and so on that we can borrow and that we can translate to commercial breeding that would actually make it, if not, as I say in the paper, the ethically preferable model, then at least one that is more ethically defensible and does more good than it does harm. I have been speaking with Dr. Candice Proni.
She is Director of the Center for Animal Welfare Science at Purdue University. And we've been speaking about her piece, turning up the volume on man's best friend ethical issues associated with commercial dog breeding. You can find it in the Journal of Applied Animal Ethics. Candice, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today.
Thank you. I really appreciate it. You can now find the Humanities Matter podcast by Brill on Spotify, Apple or Google.