Rachel & Mazzy

I found Rachel and Mazzy’s presentation very interesting. What struck me the most was our discussion of the anti-vivisection movement. I could not believe that medical students and/or scientists used to dissect dogs or perform any kind of invasive surgery on them well they were still alive much less still awake. It surprised me that anyone could hear an animal’s cries and not perceive that as suffering. This also made me think about Dawkin’s argument on why animals must have emotions. She emphasized that since animals are capable of reinforcement learning, they must be capable of experiencing emotions. This she argued was because animals could figure out that there actions could cause either good or bad things to happen to them, and since they chose to make good things happen they must be able to experience wanting, an emotion. These animals must have been crying before these dissections were performed; therefore just as a human animal would cry or yell if he or she were tied down not solely because this process was so horrible, but also in anticipation of what could happen next, these animals must have been crying for the same reasons. It surprises me that so many people did not think these non-human animals were suffering just as human animals do.

Also as I was looking at the picture of Mazzy when she was first taken to the PSPCA and comparing it to how she looks now, I was shocked to see how drastically different she looks. During my orientation at the PSPCA, I saw a puppy that looked very similar to the way Mazzy looked when she was first taken there. It can be very hard to see the condition that some owners allow their animals to reach before they seek treatment for them or before they are removed from their homes. Seeing images like this make the mission of the animal welfare movement seem all the more important; if more people were educated on how to properly care for their animals or if more people who abuse their animals were caught and severely punished, the number of animals that face such horrible problems could be greatly decreased.