There was a nice article entitled "How do we know what animals re really feeling" in the NYT 23 Aprl 24.
Of course this is a complex subject and one we will probably never fully appreciate but it brought up some good points and many of them have been discussed before. Years ago I was privileged to attend a seminar by Temple Grandin and hear of her studies and observations and activism for animal treatment in slaughter houses..I grew up in farm country and about a linear mile from one such place and I have always been emotionally conflicted by the process. One of the things my relationship with dogs has taught me is that we do live in different worlds but that -as Henry Beston would say they are not our lessers--For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”
In the NYT article it raised the concept of 5 freedoms-- not exactly for our fur buddies but for how we should treat captive animals in zoo, farms and in those last few days at the slaughter houses:
They are: 1. the freedom from hunger and thirst; 2. the freedom from discomfort; 3. the freedom from pain, injury or disease; 4. the freedom to express normal behavior; and 5. the freedom from fear and distress.
Anyway food for thought as we touch their world and they touch ours.
Of course this is a complex subject and one we will probably never fully appreciate but it brought up some good points and many of them have been discussed before. Years ago I was privileged to attend a seminar by Temple Grandin and hear of her studies and observations and activism for animal treatment in slaughter houses..I grew up in farm country and about a linear mile from one such place and I have always been emotionally conflicted by the process. One of the things my relationship with dogs has taught me is that we do live in different worlds but that -as Henry Beston would say they are not our lessers--For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”
In the NYT article it raised the concept of 5 freedoms-- not exactly for our fur buddies but for how we should treat captive animals in zoo, farms and in those last few days at the slaughter houses:
They are: 1. the freedom from hunger and thirst; 2. the freedom from discomfort; 3. the freedom from pain, injury or disease; 4. the freedom to express normal behavior; and 5. the freedom from fear and distress.
Anyway food for thought as we touch their world and they touch ours.
