01 AprEpisode 199 | Best Pet Ever: Katya Lidsky, host of The Animal That Changed You, on writing love letters to her dying dog. Also: Jonathan Safran Foer’s case for eating… dogs.
Annie interviews Katya Lidsky, a writer, podcaster and frequent dog fosterer who lives in Austin, TX. She recently started a podcast called The Animal That Changed You, and interviewed Annie about an animal that changed her (head over and check out the episode!).
Katya, who refers to herself as a "soft core" animal activist, tells Annie about loving and losing a dog who helped her heal from her longtime struggle with an eating disorder. In her dog Ophelia's final days, Katya wrote her love letters daily. Annie lends her some advice on introducing a foster dog to her current dog, and the two discuss their thoughts on how vegetarianism relates to being a dog lover -- Katya doesn't eat meat, but Annie does and... has complicated feelings about that fact.
That point in their conversation moved Annie to share a section from the 2010 book by Jonathan Safran Foer Eating Animals: The Case For Eating Dogs.
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Mentioned in this episode:
Find our on-demand courses (including Body Language Basics) here
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals by Hal Herzog
Transcript:
Annie:
So I recently started a series on School For The Dogs Podcast that is really just an excuse to talk to interesting people about their interesting pets and inspired in part by Betty White, who had a show in the seventies called The Pet Set, where she basically just got her famous friends to go on TV with her to talk about their pets.
And I was pleased to see that I'm not the only person who's had this clearly genius idea because shortly after I started this series, I got an email with a subject line, The Animal That Changed You, and it was from Katya Litsky, who is joining me right now. Katya, thank you for being here. You are the host of the podcast, The Animal That Changed You. Tell me a little bit about yourself.
Katya Lidsky:
Oh gosh. I like the way you put – I like any sentence that says Betty White in it at all, but it's a podcast about talking to extraordinary people about the extraordinary animal or animals who have changed their lives. I look forward to having you on there Annie. And you know, it's kind of like a community for people who cannot watch what happens to a horse in a war scene in a movie, but have no problem seeing what happens to the human on the horse. Even if the horse tramples that human. That's fair game, but please spare the animal.
And I have this theory that if we can identify with something, if we can identify as being animal lovers, I think we can grow into it. And even if we grow 2% more, that is really good for animals and for people, for everyone involved. So I'm all about, you know, if you love an animal, you have a space in that community.
Annie:
I know that you describe yourself on your website as a self-described, or you call yourself a self-described softcore animal activist. Is that right?
Katya:
Yes.
Annie:
What does that mean? Well I would say that the hardcore animal rights and animal activism movement has really captured me. I am a black and white thinker. One might call me. I definitely have to be careful around cults. But I don't know if that reaches everybody. And so I guess in all my years loving animals and volunteering at the shelter and for a time being a dog trainer, which is why I love your podcast so much, I now say I'm more like a, like a life coach for you and your dog. Like, I just wanna hear about you and your dog. [laughs] And then I'm gonna suggest Annie Grossman for where you need to go get your dog training.
But all those years, I still really like people. And I want people to know that we need each other in order to help animals. So I guess I say softcore in that, like, no judgment, like judgment-free zone. However you care about animals is better than not caring about them.
Annie:
You're a writer.
Katya:
Yeah. I'm a writer. You know, my husband gave me a name for what my brand of writing is. And he calls it heavity, which is heavy stuff told with levity, because he invented a name for me. But yeah, I'm a writer and we moved to Austin almost two years ago from Los Angeles. Pandemic move to come back to be close to family.
And I foster dogs and make my family do it whether they want to or not. And I volunteer at the Austin animal center. And before that I was at the south LA shelter in Los Angeles. I love being at an animal shelter, which is weird maybe to say, or maybe it's not weird to say, but it is one of my favorite places to be. And I write, and I'm no fun to watch a movie with because I will break down the story and make you listen to it. And I have two daughters. So at all other times I'm momming them.
Annie:
Tell me about the dog who changed you. I know from looking a little bit on your site that you lost your dog not too long ago.
Katya:
Ophelia was my first rescue, a beagle mix. And what can I say? I mean, I definitely feel a little less me without her around. She passed like a month ago at 17 ish years old. We had a long life together. I thought I was maybe gonna be like, you know, throwing my body on the floor, crying. It's less of that. It's more, just a sort of strange discomfort, you know.
Annie:
Now she was a beagle? Tell me about how she came into your life.
Katya:
Yeah, she was a beagle mix. Basically, I was not at my best. I was 26 years old, 25 years old, actually, struggling to be a person. I have OCD. It's not that it's not manageable. It's that I wasn't diagnosed at the time. And for me, it really came out in the expression of an eating disorder that I'd had for a long, long time, since I was about 11 years old.
And well, they were selling a bunch of dogs. Ophelia was one they were not selling because she was a parvo puppy and she was really sick. And they didn’t say she was a parvo puppy. We just knew she was sick. So we said we would take her and take her to the vet and try to take care of her. We did, she ended up having parvo.
There's something that happens, I think, to a person who has a hard time knowing what to put in their own body and how to take care of themselves when you are begging an animal to eat and drink water, just so that they'll be okay. And I really believe that that was the beginning of my real recovery.
And you know, her and I didn't have like a precious connection in the sense that like we fought, we would have arguments, we would laugh. We had inside jokes. Like it was real, it wasn't like this, you know, so sweet and everything perfect relationship. It was like the realest relationship I had ever had. All emotions welcome.
Annie:
Okay.
Katya:
Yeah. And she helped me heal from all my stuff because it, everything became less about me and more about us together, her and I. From there, it was, how can I help more animals? And we fostered, like, I would say now we're like at 61, 62 animals by this point.
Annie:
How was she with all the dogs you were fostering?
Katya:
Oh my God, Annie. She was amazing. She was like my little assistant, you know, I used to of like, I'm sure many people do, that idea of the alpha dog being like – I would love to know how you explain how you describe it because you're a pro, but for me it was like understanding that the dog that's like barking and reacting is not an alpha.
And I learned that through Ophelia ‘cause she was just so cool, calm and collected all the time. She would just like quiet a dog with a glance. She was super tolerant of fosters. They'd walk in and she'd be like, hi, the water bowls over here. Here's where we poop. There's where we sleep, you know, giving them a tour. She's amazing. She, the best you know, tolerated in coming home from the shelter smelling, like who knows how many animals and just, just tolerated it all. She really did.
Annie:
One thing I noticed on your website is that you have love letters that you've written to her. Tell me about these, I guess they’re blog posts, but they read a little bit like love letters written to almost like a – I mean I think if you read them out of context, you might think some of them were written to a person or even to…Actually reading them, I thought some of them sounded like they maybe were written to an ex or something.
It made me think about how when someone leaves your life, even if they're not dead, it can feel sort of like death. But also made me think about how the death of a person or a death of an animal, if you love someone, you love them. That love is real. But tell me more about these letters, if you will.
Katya:
I love how you put all that and thanks for even looking at them. Basically October 1st, 2021 Ophelia already had kidney failure, kidney disease. So we started to do subcutaneous fluids and I started to sort of really panic about life without her. And for me, because she was so baked into my recovery or my idea of getting better. I got scared if you will. I thought, oh my God, I don't know what being okay looks like without her. I don't know what recovery looks like without her. Am I gonna be okay? I don't want, like, I felt very resistant.
So I tried to just do everything I could. And one of the things I did was call a canine acupuncturist to come and she was very good at acupuncture and had terrible EQ. She was just very blunt.
Like she walked in and was like, yeah, you should be planning for this dog's death. I was like, it's nice to meet you. I was so pissed. And Annie, I don't know about you. I'm very good at tears and sadness and cry– I can cry right now if you want me to. And I'm also excellent at guilt, but anger is not an emotion that I house very well. I don't know what to do with it. It's like a hot potato.
And that day I was like, I'm sitting down to write Ophelia a letter. And I made a promise in that letter that I would write her a letter every day for the rest of her life to prove this acupuncturist wrong because she predicted that Ophelia had a couple weeks left. And Ophelia had 118 days left. And I know that to be an exact number because I literally wrote her a letter for the next 118 days. She passed away January 26.
And it was, you know, circle back to the OCD. I said I was gonna do it. So I did it. And couldn't let go of my promise, and it ended up being so, so helpful. And I highly recommend anybody who's lost a pet or is looking down at, you know, down the road and thinking, oh, shit, it's coming. Sorry. I curse.
Annie:
As someone with two small children, I know you have to host small children, I think, How did she find the time? But I, I know when I was faced with the reality that my dog's days ahead of me were numbered, that's one of the fears I felt was how can I somehow document all that this relationship has meant to me? How can I adequately memorialize this dog? How could I possibly make anyone else understand my feelings?
And I think the answer I came up with was, I can't. I just, I can’t. I can just know that I was as present as possible in his life. You can't ever remember every single thing. You can just hope that you were there as much as you could be, but that's, I envy you having the ability to spend that time focusing on those thoughts in a way that now you can go back and look at because it's really, it's really special.
Katya:
Thank you for saying that. I guess there are blessings and curses to obsessive thinking. But it did help me process. I will say it did. I agree with your point that it helped me capture my feelings and our relationship, but it also helped me process. And I didn't know that at the time, but I see it now in retrospect how helpful it was to have those letters working on me, working on my spirit, leading up to her passing.
Annie:
Yeah. So would you say she's the dog who changed you?
Katya:
For sure she's the dog who changed me. I guess I never knew, you know, I'm very close with my family. One might say the word enmeshed. That person wouldn't be wrong if they said it. But I never knew what that kind of love looked like based on my own, you know, assumptions or hangups, the kind that I had with Ophelia, which was to be fully myself, full range of feelings, and be loved no matter what. And nothing could change that, that feeling I hadn't felt in any way to that extreme until her.
But she's also the dog who changed me because thanks to her everything's different. I eat different. I'm a vegetarian. I advocate for animals. I take in animals. I spend my free time with animals. I mean, my whole life is different because of a 25 pound dog.
Annie:
Tell me about the vegetarianism. How did that come about because of her?
Katya:
You know, it's funny. I actually, I guess we are who we are. The first time I started being a vegetarian, I was 12 years old. And just because I was like, I didn't like meat. I didn't like knowing where it came from. It's not the easiest thing. If you have an eating disorder you're not dealing with, you know? To lose a food group. Oh gosh, I'm being such a bummer, Annie. Sorry guys.
But I had the moral, I guess, compass for it, but I didn't necessarily have all the other parts of myself supported yet. So I wasn't a perfect vegetarian, and I'd love for people to know that they don't have to be in any way, shape or form. My husband is not a vegetarian, but he eats a lot less, that's good for me.
But then once I adopted Ophelia and she was in my life, I just had a sort of knowing that every animal could be someone's Ophelia. And that was something that felt like a sort of mana falling from the sky. Like it struck me and I believed it fully and knew that, yeah, I just was never gonna be able to slide back.
And at that time, I had the support in place to take care of myself. And I wanted to take care of myself, Annie, because I wanted to be okay enough to take care of Ophelia.
Annie:
I think I've had the same feeling about not eating meat or why I would like to not eat meat. That is, how is it that I can be eating chickens and pigs and cows and fish, and yet lavishing so much affection and attention on dogs, and being so committed to just making sure that their lives are happy, when I very much doubt that this chicken I just ate knew very much happiness. I think a lot about that and often come back similarly to my own struggles, just eating well at all.
Katya:
Totally to relate to that
Annie:
My own uh, I would say inability or I wouldn't call it a disorder, but like just my, my struggle to keep myself fed in any kind of healthy way. I bet there are a lot of people somewhere on that continuum of, yeah. Of feeling like a hypocrite and also feeling like there's this necessity to eat in a way that is sustainable for my life.
Katya:
Yeah.
Annie:
I would say I'm not a vegetarian, but I definitely eat meat less and I eat it differently than I did before I got into dog training. And I've, I mean, I've read some really great books on the subject. I don't know if you've read Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat.
Katya:
No, I haven't read that.
Annie:
It’s by Hal Herzog. It's really one of my favorite books. You know, what's funny too is when I – pretty early on, I think in my dog training days, I got it in my head, I started wondering why we don't eat dogs at shelters, which I know is a gruesome thing to even suggest, but it made me.
Katya:
That’s dark.
Annie:
Yeah. But I started to think about like, well, if you're really gonna go for local food and animal animals are in the law and animal is an animal. And you know, if you're going to eat meat, the least hypocritical thing to do, I guess, would be to kill animals that are dying for reasons other than being raised for slaughter. Anyway, I had this whole like line of thought, and then there's a whole chapter in a book. the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.
Katya:
I love that book.
Annie:
He has a whole chapter that's like, why don't we eat dogs from shelters? And I was like, oh my I'm not the only one who’s had this thought!
Katya:
Genius. If you guys are mind melding, I just wanna put that out there. And I, I also wanna push back a little bit on the hypocrisy feeling that you. Not to dismiss or take away that you feel it, but for whatever it's worth, just to be an alternative voice to that, and to, I guess, invite you to, to not put that label on yourself.
Because I feel like, and this is why I was so committed to creating a community with The Animal That Changed you podcast that was nonjudgmental because honestly that line never ends. It's like, okay, now I'm a perfect vegetarian, but I'm not a vegan. Okay. Now I'm a vegan, but I'm not perfect that one time or those times when I travel. Okay, now I'm a perfect vegan, but I take Tylenol. Tylenol was tested on animals. Okay. So now I don't take Tylenol. It just never ends because it's just impossible to live in a pure world.
And I am absolutely not saying, So why do we care, give up and eat everything, and, you know, have no heart. That is not what I'm suggesting. But I do think I anyway have a gut feeling when I know I'm doing my best, you know, that like click feeling when you're like, I'm doing okay, this is good enough. And for my husband, it looks like eating a lot less meat than he would maybe twice a week. And for me it looks like not eating it at all.
But whatever that looks like for you is good enough. And I, I really do believe that. And in five years it might look different, but I think letting it be good enough is what will let you get five years from now to a space where you do a little bit more.
Annie:
That's encouraging. I like putting it that way. Where are you with animals now? I guess both workwise and homewise?
Katya:
This is, this brings me to my question to you as well as to answering your question. I write about animals and I have my podcast about animals, and I really just wanna connect with other people who care about animals. That's like my favorite thing in the world. I have a dog named Sassy who's a beagle mix. Also ‘cause I have a type. And she came as a foster and we kept her forever. She's really good with my kids. And I'm looking at a hound dog. I guess a treeing walker, hound dog, something like one of those bigger ones at the humane society here who has an eye disease, like the dry eye disease.
Why am I telling you all this? I'm looking for my next foster, and this dog Bessie, this bigger hound and sassy I've noticed, Annie, both are kind of really independent, especially this dog Besie who I barely know. So I wanna, I wanna give her that the credit, but I wanted to ask you how you would recommend – I tend to take needy dogs in and foster needy dogs who like immediately have like a gazillion kisses and love to give and wanna follow me to the bathroom.
Sassy's pretty independent. But this other dog we're considering taking in, Bessie, is very independent and I'm wondering how you recommend bonding, and at the same time, me not trying to change her personality. You know, like accepting her for who she is. She might be more independent than my needy ass. But how do you recommend facilitating a bond despite her level of wanting to be on her own?
Annie:
Just so I follow, your current dog is very needy. Is that what you're saying?
Katya:
No, she's in the middle. Like I'm used to needier dogs. My current dog Sassy is somewhere in the middle. I should be clear. She's like, loves my kids, loves us, but is totally cool doing her own thing, but she kind of falls in the middle. This new dog that I'm looking at taking in for our family is a treeing walker hound and a big girl. She's beautiful. She's senior. I love the senior dogs. But she seems a little bit aloof, and I don't have a lot of experience with dogs who don't immediately want to lick our faces and be, you know, following us to the bathroom. I really take in really needy dogs, which says a lot about me and I know this, I'm working on it.
But I wanted to ask you ‘causeI was excited to talk to you. It was just good timing. How do you facilitate bonding with a dog like that?
Annie:
I mean I think if you're bringing in – and she hasn't been in your space before in your home, this new dog?
Katya:
No, her name's Bessie and she hasn't, I've gone to visit her a few times. She needs a foster.
Annie:
Yeah, I would, I would just make sure that both dogs have their own physical spaces in the home and that they're both getting attention maybe in the same room, but they don't need to be on top of each other, make sure you're feeding them separately and then let them, let them work it out. Let them see you spending time with both of them.
Take some good walks together, assuming that that's something that they both can do in the area that you're in. Co-walking is a really nice way for dogs to get to know each other, to be outside with you, and to interact in a safe way. Leashed, but not in your home. And let them find each other on their own.
I think that the more, and especially if you have kids, I think that the more that you can learn about reading dog body language, the better that you're gonna be. And actually if I can plug it, we have a course that is called our Body Language Basics course, it's a text based course. You can find it at SchoolForTheDogs.com/courses, fully on demand. And I think there's some really good information there that can help you and your children.
Notice, look for signs of stress or happiness, or comfort or discomfort, and arrange the environment in ways that are gonna decrease the stress and, and increase the happy moments for that dog. Yeah. Who is gonna be a different dog.
Katya:
Totally.
Annie:
I mean, she's gonna be a different dog at your home than she is in a shelter, and she's gonna be a different dog, you know, on the weekend than she was the week that you brought her.
Katya:
Totally.
Annie:
They're all changing all the time, but especially in coming into a very different, new environment. Let the new dog set the pace.
Katya:
I love that. I think it is really helpful to remember that every dog is individual. And so even the experience I've had in the years I've had fostering dogs. It's like this dog will be new in a way, because I don't know her feedback loop and her signs and her tells. And so I appreciate you reminding me of that and I'm definitely gonna go look up that book for my kids.
Annie:
I also think that, and I've talked about this on the podcast before, but if you realize it's not the right home for, and I mean, and you must know this as someone who fosters dogs, but if you realize that it's not the right home for her, that's okay.
Katya:
Yeah.
Annie:
You will have still done her a favor ultimately.
Katya:
Yeah. Thank you for reminding me of that. I always need to hear that.
Annie:
And you need to, like I said, you wanna take, take the cues from the new dog, you also wanna be mindful of the fact that it is your old dog's home and your loyalty, it makes sense for your loyalty to be with your old dog. So.
Katya:
Yeah. So how do I get this new dog messy to bond with me and to interact with me? Because she seems aloof to me anyway. How do I make her like me, Annie?
Annie:
Do some training, work on some hand touches. Give her some fun food toys. If you want some training exercises we can get on the zoom and give you some more specific things you can do with her. But that's absolutely the kind of thing that we do. You know, people tend to think about dog training as solving a problem, but it might be sometimes the simple is something like that. You know, there's no problem. There's just a bond there that you want and how can, how can we help you get there.
Katya:
I love that. And I saw that you re-released the Touch episode and I was very happy. I was like, yes, this one!
Annie:
So, plug your podcast a little bit. What can people find or expect to find other than, other than a forthcoming conversation with me, that'll be different than this conversation. [laughs]
Katya:
I can't wait for it. I'm excited. The Animal That Changed You is a podcast where you get kind of a mix of stories of people who love animals and why. So there's like some heads of animal welfare for nonprofits and some dog trainers. And there's some celebrities and there's people who are deep in animal rights, and then there’s like everything in between. So it's hopefully a place where you can identify with someone for everyone as like, oh, they feel that way about animals, and I do too.
Because I believe animals are like the biggest equalizer. As his motherhood, you know, it's like, oh, we all feel that humility. And so I aim to sort of run the gamut on the kinds of guests we have and, and everyone always comes with a new, amazing story of why an animal changed their life.
It's a little bit like, you know, when People magazine, when you open to those pages that are like, here are celebrities who love their animals. It's got a little bit of that. But then it's also got, you know, hearing about the person who runs a spay and neuter clinic program in Texas, and hearing those harder stories and those heartfelt stories about how that, you know, what was that woman's childhood like that ultimately led her to be such an advocate for animals. So it sort of goes from light to not as light, but hopefully there's something in there for everyone.
Annie:
Well, I'm glad that you're doing it.
Katya:
Thank you.
Annie:
I think that we're both doing our best to help people who love animals and help animals who love people.
Katya:
Yeah. And congrats on 10 years of School For The Dogs and being an entrepreneur, it's a hard thing to do on top of being a mom and you're doing it. So I think that's pretty amazing.
Annie:
It is hard. I think running a business is harder than having kids. I dunno.
Katya:
[laughing]
Annie:
I kind of know what to expect with the kids, like, or I've seen other people do it, but I, I just haven't seen anyone else run a dog training studio. I don't have any other points of reference. [laughs]
Katya:
It's a lot.
Annie:
But, you know, I had the thought the other day that, you know, some people say, I mean, some women, I could never be a mother. I absolutely never had any interest. And I always think like, I, I can't even imagine what that would be like, cuz I think I always felt like a mother. Like I always felt like a mom. I just didn't have kids yet, but I felt like I was already a mom in a way?
Like, it's weird for me to think like I was, I wasn't a mom before I had my kids ‘cause I felt like I was, but I was wondering maybe, maybe I felt that way because I had a dog. Even though I don't think about, I don't think I was his mom, but maybe it evoked similar feelings of wanting to take care of, of wanting to have the responsibility and loving it. Although, you know, it was so much easier to bring my dog with me places than it is to bring my kids.
Katya:
Oh God.
Annie:
Like I could just put him in a bag. [laughing]
Katya:
For sure. My husband and I are always like, when we go out to dinner as a family, we're like, was this worth it? I mean who is this for? Clearly, not for us and not for all the other patrons.
Annie.
No, no. And I live up two flights of stairs and like there's the double stroller. And I'm just like why. And New York city is, you know, it's not built for three year olds.
Katya:
And you are doing the Lord's work. You would never cease to amaze me.
Annie:
You can listen to me this week on Katya’s podcast The Animal That Changed You, where, surprise, surprise, I talked about the animal that changed me. Can you guess who I talked about?
Before I close out this episode, I wanted to go back and talk for a moment about something that came up in this conversation, which is the hairy subject, I guess you could say, of the fact that I am not a vegetarian. I eat animals and it's something I don't feel good about. It's also something I don't talk a lot about in general and not on this podcast because I feel like a hypocrite about it.
I feel like how is it that I can spend so much of my life trying to make the human world a better place for dogs, and yet there are all these other animals who are suffering because they exist only to be slaughtered and eaten by me, among other people.
I think that we are pretty good, we meat eaters out there, at either justifying why it's fine, morally, ethically, et cetera, to eat meat despite what we know that it does to the environment, and also sort of putting up a mental barrier between thinking about a dead animal that had feelings and what you might even call a personality and the ability to learn, and the abstraction that gets served you on a plate.
A few years ago, I did a week of chicken training where I worked learning how to use clicker training to teach chickens to differentiate between objects that were different shapes and different colors. And I wouldn't say I fell in love with these chickens or felt that I really knew them very well, but I certainly appreciated their ability to learn, to be affected by their environments. And you know, I literally held them in my arms.
And I could sort of imagine what it might have been like if I had been able to keep one of them as a pet. I think it's often hard to not sort of fall in love with an animal that you are training. It’s like the animal training pygmalion effect.
When I started to train dogs, I started to think very differently about how I can love another species, interact with another species. And it has made me think a lot about the ways we eat meat, what kind of meat we eat, but these are mostly quiet thoughts I have because I feel hypocritical about the whole thing.
However, as I mentioned to my conversation with Katya, Jonathan Safran Foer, someone who is quite vociferous about animal rights and his own vegetarianism wrote the book, Eating Animals, and in it was this essay that I remember, I read 10 and or so years ago, right around the time a guy I knew started dating a woman who was making cheese out of women's breast milk and selling it as a locally produced food, true story. And also right around the time, a friend of mine who was getting a doctorate in looking at intramuscular tissue told me that her lab worked with the local shelter so that they could dissect the animals for research.
These two people plus my then still rather new animal trainer’s, eye view of being a meat eater led me to wonder if there had ever been anybody who had made a case for, I hate to say it, eating the animals in shelters that are euthanized. And I kind of couldn't believe it when I was reading this book and came across the essay that I am about to share with you now. It is called A Case for Eating Dogs. And it comes after a section where he's talking about his own beloved dog. That section ends, I wouldn't eat George because she's mine, but why wouldn't I eat a dog I'd never met? Or more to the point, what justification might I have for sparing dogs, but eating other animals?
And this essay now, A Case for Eating Dogs:
Despite the fact that it's perfectly legal in 44 states, eating man's best friend is as taboo as a man eating his best friend. Even the most enthusiastic carnivores won't eat dogs. TV guy and sometimes cooker Gordon Ramsey can get pretty macho with baby animals when doing publicity for something he's selling, but you'll never see a puppy peeking out of one of his pots. And though he once said, he'd electrocute his children if they became vegetarian, I wonder what his response would be if they poached the family pooch.
Dogs are wonderful and in many ways unique, but they are remarkably unremarkable in their intellect and experiential capacities. Pigs are every bit as intelligent and feeling by any sensible definition of the words. They can't hop into the back of a Volvo, but they can fetch, run and play, be mischievous and reciprocate affection. So why don't they get to curl up by the fire? Why can't they at least be spared being tossed on the fire?
Our taboo against dog eating says something about dogs and a great deal about us. The French who love their dogs sometimes eat their horses. The Spanish who love their horses sometimes eat their cows. The Indians who love their cows sometimes eat their dogs. While written in a much different context, George Orwell’s words from Animal Farm apply here. “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
The protective emphasis is not a law of nature. It comes from the stories we tell about nature. So who's right? What might be the reasons to exclude canine from the menu? The selective carnivore suggests don't eat companion animals, but dogs aren't kept as companions in all of the places they are eaten. And what about our petless neighbors? Would we have any right to object if they had dog for dinner?
Okay, then. Don't eat animals with significant mental capacities? If by significant mental capacities, we mean what a dog has then good for the dog. But such a definition would also include the pig, cow, chicken and many species of sea animals. And it would exclude severely impaired humans.
Then it's for good reason that the eternal taboos – don't fiddle with your shit, kiss your sister, or eat your companions – are taboo. Evolutionarily speaking, those things are bad for us. But dog eating hasn't been, and isn't a taboo in many places, and it isn't in any way bad for us. Properly cooked, dog meat poses no greater health risks than any other meat nor does such a nutritious meal foster much objection from the physical component of our selfish genes.
And dog eating has a proud pedigree. Fourth century tombs contained depictions of dogs being slaughtered along with other food animals. It was a fundamental habit to have informed language itself. The Sino-Korean character for “fair and proper” (yeon) literally translates into “as cooked dog meat is delicious.”
Hippocrates praised dog meat as a source of strength. The Romans ate suckling puppy. Dakota Indians enjoyed dog liver, and not so long ago, Hawaiians ate dog brains and blood. The Mexican hairless dog was the principle food species of the Aztecs. Captain Cook ate dog. Roald Amundsen famously ate his sled dogs. Granted he was really hungry.
And dogs are still eaten to overcome bad luck in the Philippines, as medicine in China and Korea, to enhance libido in Nigeria and in numerous other places on every continent because they taste good. For centuries, the Chinese have raised special breeds of dogs like the black tongue chow, for chow, and many European countries still have laws on the books regarding postmortem examinations of dogs intended for human consumption.
Of course, something having been done just about everywhere, just about always, is no kind of justification for doing it now. But, unlike all farmed meat, which requires the creation and maintenance of animals, dogs are practically begging to be eaten. Three to 4 million dogs and cats are euthanized annually. This amounts to millions of pounds of meat now being thrown away every year. The simple disposal of these euthanized dog dogs is an enormous ecological and economic problem. It would be demented to yank pets from homes, but eating those strays, those runaways, those not quite cute enough to take and not quite well behaved enough to keep dogs would be killing a flock of birds with one stone and eating it too.
In a sense it's what we're doing already. Rendering the conversion of animal protein unfit for human consumption into food for livestock and pets allows processing plants to transform useless dead dogs into productive members of the food chain. In America, millions of dogs and cats, euthanized in animal shelters every year become the food for our food. Almost twice as many dogs and cats are euthanized as adopted. So let's just eliminate this inefficient and bizarre middle step.
All right, I'm gonna skip ahead some, because of course, this is written not to convince us that we actually should be eating dogs, but to communicate why we shouldn't be eating any animals. Safran Foer spends several paragraphs going into pretty graphic detail about various ways to slaughter and prepare dogs. And I'm gonna spare you these parts of this essay. So I'm skipping some parts here at the end here. Continuing:
Few people sufficiently appreciate the colossal task of feeding a world of billions of omnivores who demand meat with their potatoes. The inefficient use of dogs conveniently already in areas of high human population – take note, local food advocates – should make any good ecologist. blush. One could argue that various humane groups are the worst hypocrites, sending enormous amounts of money and energy in a futile attempt to reduce the number of unwanted dogs, while at the very same time propagating the irresponsible, no dog for dinner taboo.
If we let dogs be dogs and breed without interference, we would create a sustainable local meat supply with low energy inputs that would put even the most efficient grass-based farming to shame. For the ecologically minded, it’s time to admit that dog is realistic food for realistic environmentalists. Can't we get over our sentimentality? Dogs are plentiful, good for you, easy to cook, and tasty, and eating them is vastly more responsible than going through all the trouble of processing them into protein bits to become the food for the other species that become our food.
A simple trick from the backyard astronomer: if you are having trouble seeing something, look slightly away from it. The most light sensitive parts of our eyes, those we need to see dim objects, are on the edges of the region we normally use for focusing. Eating animals has an invisible quality. Thinking about dogs and the relationship to the animals we eat is one way of looking askance and making something invisible visible.
