Blog 5

It is hard for me to pinpoint how the past semester volunteering at the PSPCA influenced the work we did in class, because volunteering and fostering at animal rescues has been a significant part of my lifestyle since childhood.  I do not think it altered my perceptions of non-human animals (at least not in any remarkable ways), however I do think that the course material we covered influenced this specific round of volunteering for me.

            While I have always thought about the moral status of animals, the ways they are viewed in society, and so on, I have more or less volunteered at animal shelters and rescues with one central focus: to brighten that day for another animal.  After studying various takes and philosophies on companion animals, I began to see a greater picture with my volunteering.  I’ve thought about the ethical standpoint of pets from time to time throughout my life, but I don’t think I’ve ever evaluated the morality behind the breeding and keeping of pets to the degree I have been this past semester. The in-depth pieces we read on companion animals like Bernard E. Rollin and Michael D. H. Rollin’s “Dogmatcisms and Catechisms: Ethics and Companion Animals” really influenced the way I tried to understand companion animals at the PSPCA.  It’s always disturbed me how little people know about other animals to begin with, and hearing the Rollins’ comparison about how people need licenses and classes to buy a car or gun but nothing to adopt an animal really made me view the animals at the PSPCA in a different light.  I began to feel empathy for these animals in a completely different way than before… Would they get adopted by someone who doesn’t know or even care about them? Would they be abused? Or maybe there’s a chance they’ll find an amazing home.

            Our studies this semester have expanded my mindset on companion animals on so many levels. Never before have I pondered over how to give an non-human animal voice.  And now I find myself trying to speak and connect with animals on a much deeper level… to let them speak freely without putting words into their mouths… to look at them as individuals and learn to understand their personal wants, needs and desires.  I’ve always thought that the greatest form of expression was verbally, but perhaps that is not the case.  Mr. Bones couldn’t talk, but we could understand his feelings, but could there be a way to understand an animal on a deeper level without speaking for them? These thoughts are evidently influencing my daily life and with it the animals I encounter at home, at the PSPCA, while dog-walking, and so much more… even humans, who cannot extensively communicate, like my sister.

            This class has ultimately influenced the way I think about all of our relations, within and without communities and interspecies, and hence my actions are slowly changing as well. The PSPCA gave me a chance to explore some of these new thoughts by turning my experiences there into more than just visits with animals to brighten their days.  They influenced me to just be there with them and to listen and connect to them.

Blog 5

       Well before enrolling for this class, I had scoped out the PSPCA on Erie Ave. I had never visited it, however I wanted to volunteer there so bad, but I never had the means of getting there or the time to do it. That is why I view this class as a blessing because it enabled me and almost gave me an excuse to go volunteer, as horrible as that sounds.  Volunteering at the SPCA not only helped me in the sense that I got to play with and walk dogs all day, which was a dream come true being so far away from my own dogs, and dogs in general. I love dogs so much.
       It also gave me such a great perspective of just how often dogs come in and out of shelters. I have volunteered at a shelter in Arizona, the Marricopa County SPCA, so it was not my first experience in a shelter environment. However down in Arizona, the general shelter dog is a lab, a retriever mix, a lot of Chihuahuas and smaller dogs, and the occasional pit bull mix. This was something I truly appreciate having had experienced; becoming accustomed to and working with pit bull mixes. I learned from this class much more about pit bulls than I ever would have outside of this class. And the best part is that it is all factual evidence and advice, which I have been able to reciprocate to other people, including my mother. She is very uneasy around them, having grown up in a community in rural Ohio where there have been well known  incidences with pit bulls, all tragedies. However my experiences and what I have learned has gradually altered her view towards them and I have even convinced her to let me foster one when I move back home this summer!
       We learned a lot about dogs in general in this class; their behaviors, their perception, their language both verbal and non verbal, and most importantly, we learned how to better understand them. I would have never known that the best way to tell what a dog is thinking or feeling is through watching its mouth. Thanks to Nicole Larocc and Uli for demonstrating this so well! A lesson I will definitely keep with me and that has also come very in handy at the shelter. One of my 'favorites' that has unfortunately been at the shelter for too long in my opinion, her name is Sage she is an all white pit mix and just amazingly beautiful and overly friendly. When i approach her cage even before showing the leash, her tail wags ferociously but the thing that I always notice which I have pointed out to others is what she does with her mouth. She almost smiles which I have learned from Nicole that even though it looks like she is showing her teeth, it is a nervous and excited thing that dogs do sometimes and it comes from stress.
       The SPCA also influenced my reading as well, in a more imaginative sense. When it came to Timbuktu for example, when imagining Mr. Bones, and how he was described and depicted, I had my own vision of him as not one but a few dogs from the SPCA. His traits of obedience, patience, friendliess, and overall understanding of what was going on, really linked him in my mind to a dog at the shelter, Lucy one of my previous 'favorites' before she got adopted! YAY for Lucy! I am an extremely visual as well as tactile learner. So when I can link one thing to another from visual experience, that is how I connect and learn the best. And this would not have been possible having not volunteered at the SPCA.

Gaining Perspective

I think that the most important thing that the PSPCA gave me was an additional perspective to compare to my previous experiences. In terms of reading, it helps to be able to see all sides of an argument, rather than blindly accepting what you read. Many arguments in the animal world side very heavily in one direction, so having experiences with people who are on both sides of an issue allows me to see and know how I feel in a much clearer sense.

Working with animals is very much a give and take between the individual animal and your own personality. I think that being at the PSPCA made me more aware of the way in which people interact with animals on all ends of the spectrum. In previous work with training and owning animals, it always seemed that a dog/cat could become incredibly attached to one person. After being around so many different personalities of humans and animals at the PSPCA, it made me think about how the uniqueness of two individuals could fit incredibly well together, even when others cannot seem to reach an animal.

Volunteering at the PSPCA was not only a great place to interact with the animals, but it gave me a great deal of insight into how people choose their pets. In class it was mentioned that when potential adopters come in its almost like grocery shopping instead of getting to know an animal. I think that this was an interesting observation that could be viewed a few different ways. On one hand, how do people really choose their pets? In the current American lifestyle, we don’t allot time from our day to spend every day at a shelter for a week looking for the right dog. If you were buying a dog from a breeder, it is often based on looks or one meeting of the dog. If you rescue a stray from off of the street, do you really know their personality or how they will behave in your home? So I think that it is hard to see potential adopters in that sort of light. That being said, not every person should own a pet and I think the decision itself is often impulsive. Thinking about these sorts of social issues is definitely something that has affected me after my time at the PSPCA.

Overall, I think that more people should participate in their community. When I first came to Temple, I began volunteering for Tree House Books, a non-profit bookstore that also supports an after school program for children in the area. Being immersed in the area and families around Temple really helped me to understand a culture that I hadn’t been exposed to before. The PSPCA was a similar experience, where I had never been in that type of culture. I truly enjoyed looking at this aspect of societal/animal culture in an urban setting. 

Blog 5

What initially drew me to this course was the opportunity and neccesity of volunteering at the PSPCA. I had been wanting to volunteering with animals in shelters for a long time, but this course provided the needed push to actually get me doing it. Almost every experience volunteering with the dogs has taught me something, be it about myself, animals, or education. The experiences that I have had while volunteering have also shaped and reinforced my viewpoints on animal literature as well as the points made by some of the authors of the essays, poems, and stories that we read. It is one thing to read about animal welfare, but it affects you at a whole different level once you actually deal with animals who have suffered from the lack of attention and reform of animal welfare and rights. Every time I leave the PSPCA after volunteering, I get a refreshing boost of hope and dedication becasue I have been reminded why things need to change and why I care. Having personal experiences from volunteering also helps make my opinions more solid as well as giving me a basis for comparing the opinions of writers on the subject. This allows me to formulate and defend my own opinions based on my true feelings rather than how good someone else defends and pushes their opinions of animals.

When dealing with such a controversial and personal topic such as is animal welfare and rights, you are bound to end up feeling a variety of conflicting emotions. I found this both in my volunteering and while reading the literature assignments for the class. While reading and volunteering my emotions and responses have varied from sadness to anger to hatred to disappointment and more. When someone cares so strongly about a topic, it is hard to try to academically and equally consider all viewpoints not matter how opposite they may be from your own. This course material, however, demands the student to consider all sides and how they have historically have effects and impacted animal welfare and rights which have molded animal welfare as it currently stands. It is necessary to understand the history of animal welfare and how it has gotten to what iris today in order to create ideas for reform that will be more likely to be successful. The course literature as well as experiences at the PSPCA have helped me to gather a more well rounded understanding of animal welfare as well as what some reasons are for why people stand on the other side of animal welfare than I do. The best way to change someone's mind is by understanding their defenses and manipulating them to have opposite effects. All of these resources, experiences, and gained knowledge will no doubt help aid animal welfare and rights reform to make the world safer and better for animals and humans.

Connecting the PSPCA with the classroom

I think that volunteering at the PSPCA had a particularly strong impact on how I read Timbuktu. Because Timbuktu is a novel about a companion animal, it was easy to relate what I saw in the shelter to what I saw in the pages of Auster's book. Timbuktu offers a lot of great insight about dogs in general, such as the way they perceive sight and smell. By questioning how Mr. Bones experienced the world -- how smelling the neighborhood was akin to reading the newspaper -- I was able to then apply that same line of questioning to the dogs and cats at the PSPCA.

Reading, in turn, influenced how I felt about volunteering. Volunteering made me feel good because I felt like what I was doing mattered, like I was truly making a difference. Reading philosophically-based works about animal welfare, and reading poetry that looked at animals in a more artistic light, reinforced that good feeling. Not only was I helping, but I was living a life that fell in line with my values, and I was experiencing first-hand what I was learning in the classroom. I think the combination of community service and classroom learning struck a very nice cord, and above all, it will make future volunteering a lot less daunting and unfamiliar.

-Shannon P. Kelly

Blog 5

Volunteering at the PSCPA reinforced my learning in class because whenever I learned about new concepts or ideas in class it stuck with me during my time with the dogs and cats. It also changed my understanding of them and influenced how I treated them. I tried talking to the dogs like Willy talks to Mr. Bones for instance.. whether that has any effect at all is obviously unknown but there's no harm :) 

Volunteering there also helped learn more about the shelter animals situation and I could say influenced the way I received the information I learned in class. I know that in my journals and essays volunteering at the PSCPA definitely had an influence. It gave me a lot of opportunities to reflect on both sides of the argument. A lot of the readings from AE affected the way I saw different situations and arguments like the ones about whether they were they could be a moral agent or the different shades of anthropomorphism. 

I think that I have to admit though, that after volunteering at the PSCPA I can't help feel a bit sad and hopeless. And ashamed. Because those homeless caged animals are a product of our society and proof of how we've failed to create a sustainable relationship with the creatures that rely on us. 

Bridging the Gap

From Heather Dyer:

Volunteering at the PSPCA informed my reading by giving context to relate to. Instead of reading abstract works such as Timbuktu, I was able to place myself within the story and think critically about real life results and consequences of certain actions. When I was working with the dogs at the PSPCA, I thought about Timbuktu and pondered the true mental capabilities of the dog. Because of Paul Auster's notion that dogs are capable of much more than humans give them credit for, I was constantly wondering while I walked the dogs how much they understood and what they were thinking about. As I would talk to the dogs, I felt they could not understand the actual words I was saying, but they could hear in the tone and inflection in my voice what I meant. I think it is these nuances in the human language that bridge the gap between the human language and dog language. 

 

In my writing, I was able to connect my experiences with the dogs at the PSPCA with the articles in the Animal Ethics Reader as well as Paul Auster's novel. Tom Regan writes in his article that it is not an act of kindness to treat animals with respect equal to that of humans, it is an act of justice. I found at the PSPCA this was especially true and practiced by all employees and volunteers. Everyone at the PSPCA had similar ethical mindsets toward animals and followed Willy's (Timbuktu) example, never questioning that the dogs had comparable abilities as humans, and in response, everyone treated the PSPCA dogs as equals. 

 

I am glad our class was able to have hands-on experience with the PSPCA dogs because it put everything we read, wrote, and discussed into context. Even if you have a dog of your own, it is not the same as visiting the PSPCA. I personally do not think about the capabilities of my own dog as much because we naturally treat her as one of the family and because we are so used to having her around, we do not think twice about it. However, when you are at the PSPCA and experience dogs who have had difficult lives, the dogs become more human. They seem to experience and react to the same struggles as every human goes through, and you can see this when you visit and interact with them. Although we cannot directly communicate with them, with a little interpretation, we can see how similar dogs are to us emotionally, and that they are just like us. 

Equality of Representation

From Heather Dyer:

Traditional representations of animals in stories has been to teach children various life lessons regarding positive character traits and morally upstanding actions, however using animals to accomplish this can seem unethical to some because the animals are misrepresented as being capable of such actions. This inaccurate illustration causes the animals to be held to unrealistic expectations, and consequently, the misrepresentation of animals has become detrimental to the relationship between humans and animals. Perhaps a more friendly representation of animals would be to use their actual actions in the wild as life lessons rather than placing another human meaning on top of their already existing qualities. This solution would highlight the animals’ actual traits rather than giving them human traits we can more easily relate to. Rather than being “sly” like a fox, humans could think about being perseverant and hard-working like the ant who continues the same action repeatedly throughout his life, working within a larger group to accomplish a task.

Paul Auster’s Timbuktu represents animals in a more positive light compared to traditional illustrations. Auster acknowledges the mental capabilities of Mr. Bones, and creates a relationship between human and animal where there is equality from both individuals. Timbuktu serves as a model of human animal relations by allowing the human a glimpse, even if partially fictional, into a dog’s mind. By understanding and accepting the capabilities of the dog, humans are much more likely to treat them with the same attitude they would treat a fellow human being. 

 

Mistreatment of animals seems to be due largely to the fact that animals are believed to be at a lower class or social strata than humans and therefore are capable of enduring the treatment. The fact is, animals seem less capable of handling mistreatment or misrepresentation because not only can they not understand why they are be treated in a certain way, they also cannot stand up or represent themselves as easily as humans. It is important for every human to come to the kind of understanding of animals that Timbuktu offers because once there is an understanding of animals, humans will feel more obligated to act as moral agents, and the animals’ treatment will improve. 

From Amanda Nardone

Terri's presentation made me feel some mixed emotions.  Any time someone set out on a mission for justice, is possible that this mission can cause one to lose sight of its context. I feel that taking cats to shelters is not necessarily the right answer.  We are not the cat, we are the humans. We may perviece their reproduction as a danger to themselves, but the same could be said of our species. Is it right for some outside force to decide to spay and neuter us? Cats make me feel these mixed emotions because they seem to be far more successful in the city than a dog or other domesticated animal. Yes, they have to battle their way to survival, but this is the same for any other animal. The difference between a wild and a domestic cat is temperament. 

Timbuktu created this viewpoint in me. I had previously believed that as humans, we have the responsibility to take the animal to the shelter and have someone adopt it. In Timbuktu, Mr. Bones has the ability to chose his companion because he is a stray and can come and go as he chooses. He is concerned over the human's capacity for kindness and fears those who might want to harm him. I think this model is more successful because it is more true to how domesticated animals evolved in the first place. The wild human and the wild animal chose each other instead of the human picking the animal from a cage.

Mr. Bones and Human-Animal Relations

Timbuktu allows the reader to gain insight into the mind of a dog, Mr. Bones. It not only addresses issues that dogs face, but also issues that humans have to deal with, such as homelessness or marital problems. By making Mr. Bones into such a likable and relatable character, I think that people can find more empathy with animals. Mr. Bones could be helpful for human animal relations when thinking about some of the obstacles that he has to face. The first that comes to mind is his unhappiness with the kennel and feeling ill but not being able to communicate. The idea of communication is key in his relationship with Willy as well as with his later caregivers. Human-animal relations with dogs are incredibly intertwined due to the nature of their domestication. Mr. Bones helps to further the cause for proper care and treatment of animals by provided necessary empathy.