There are very few fears in my life that I can’t rationally explain away.
Everyone’s afraid of bugs but there are antidotes for near everything… Drowning is a real risk but if I don’t go in the water I can’t drown… Planes are safer than cars- as our last trip to Washington state proved… So on and so forth.
But the human element is something I can’t rationally grasp. There are so many aspects to the human mind that I can’t even begin to fathom- the desire to kill and murder, mental illness and self-destructive behavior… even the desire and need to be intentionally cruel to other people and living creatures. I imagine it is because I can’t do those things so I can’t grasp people doing those things. Fundamentally- we are all supposed to be the same, right? So how can we be so broad on the spectrum of human personality and psyche?
So, perusing the news I found this 5-part article at Slate about Animal testing, and the dog that sparked the regulation of the animal testing industry.
It’s an amazing article that really pulls at my heart strings and made me rethink my stance on many things.
But the part that struck a chord with me is about the dog that started it all- a Dalmatian named Pepper that was stolen from her 86-acre ranch in 1965. In ten days her life was turned upside down- transferred between three “owners” and sold to a research facility- and ultimately died at the hands of a doctor who was experimenting on her.
Personally- that horrifies me.
Firstly- that someone could just up at STEAL someone else’s pet. The only time I can conceivably endorse such a behavior is removing a pet from a situation in which it is suffering. But even then, there could be huge repercussions to the animal in something like that. Animals can mentally shut down, or not handle the stress- depending on their living style before their rescue. Sometimes, putting an animal to sleep is the most humane thing you can do if their suffering is deep and never-ending.
Secondly- the idea that Pepper’s life went from joyous country living to abject horror and disrespect- torture even- at the hands of creatures she had come to rely on to keep her safe, fed and happy. Even if her family had found her in the ten days she was missing, Pepper may not have been the same dog when she returned home. That crushes me. Some people see their pets as a part of their family and home. Taking that from someone is akin to kidnapping in some circles. And even if it’s just a day or two- that could destroy everything that pet is. Even just a day at the Animal Shelter can create physiological damage that may take weeks-even months- to repair for some dogs.
Thirdly, that people- in this case doctors and scientists- can just purposefully destroy an animal for their own needs. I understand the need for scientific experimentation- but I don’t have to like it. The idea that an animal is made less of a living creature and more of a scientific tool horrifies me. Doing that to an animal negates its existence- even more so in lab animals bred for such purposes.
I mean- at first I was complacent that lab animals were bred for testing. They are genetically similar across the board, making their tests results as uniform as could be. And being bred for testing- that would be their purpose in life, they wouldn’t know any better. That would be their life. As long as bad things didn’t happen, and they got their basic needs fulfilled, they would be okay.
 Not like stolen dogs that had happy lives before thrown into a life of experimentation.
But because an animal is born into lab life, does that mean that we should sentence them to such a life? There could be an awesome pet born into that less-than-stellar existence and no one could ever know, and it would have things performed on it that could ruin-or kill- that animal. And just because their basic needs are met, is that REALLY a life? Is prison life really life, or just an existence?
What set me on the other side of the fence in this was sometimes; animals that are tested on are tested for the most mundane things. Master’s Degree Studies, Eye motion, electrical impulses in the brain, sometimes just to have a living thing to test in situations. Just to fuck around.
How is that any different than the neighbor kid tying a firecracker to a cat’s tail?
They’re doing it for the same results- just to see what will happen.
The only difference is that one of them has a degree and one doesn’t. There’s a certain kind of disjointedness, a lack of compassion when it comes to injuring animals on purpose. Sometimes we have to teach compassion. Sometimes we just have it in us from the get-go. And some people learn to suppress it.
I guess what I am getting at is pretty simple. Injuring animals in any form- from kicking strays to testing on monkeys- is inherently wrong in my book. And there will be a special time in purgatory for people who purposely injure animals. Even though the testing might benefit humans- as Pepper’s testing ultimately did- there’s still the idea that they are cruelly manipulating the lives of lesser creatures, and last I check that wasn’t a part of God’s master plan. We were meant to be Stewards of the lands and its creatures, not its masters.