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.