A domesticated animal describes an animal that has been tamed to be kept as a pet or as livestock. However, the human-centric nature of our society affects the perceptions of the intelligence and roles of particular animals.
Why is the dog man’s best friend, but the pig doesn’t get the same love? Why do we put up with cats and yet a duck walking about the house would be seen as strange? Our relationship with the animals we keep at close quarters makes little sense when considered.
Hell of a Swine!
From Peppa to Piglet and Porky to Miss Piggy, the pig holds the childhood image of a friendly affable beast. Yet, upon growing older, we accept their position as livestock. Used primarily for food production, other products including medicine and material for clothes are also derived from pigs. Large, lazy and smelly, wallowing in mud and their own filth, the pig becomes the fart joke of the animal kingdom. Pumba the warthog in The Lion King is even the first Disney character to do so. Scandalous!
Yet, studies show that pigs are intelligent, capable of care and clean animals. They assign areas for their waste and only bathe in mud to keep cool, similar to dogs toilet habits and panting. This only scrapes the surface of the depth of the capabilities of pigs.
The UK government formally recognises pigs as sentient beings. A sentient being is one capable of feeling emotions and can perceive and react to sensations. This is accepted as being true for all vertebrate animals; yet this still doesn’t do justice.
Pigs are able to perceive time, understand mirrors/ reflections and display detailed memory and defined learning. Taking the complexity of the pig’s intellect into account, why are they not comparable to dogs in our homes and hearts? Why are 80,000 experimented on a year in the UK and allotted a space smaller than a double bed to live?
It is down to what they do for us. Pigs are used for the material of their bodies. Dogs were, and continue to be, used in service for protection of people and livestock and for hunting and tracking. The transition into our modern society made it easier for dogs to integrate into their prominent role as household pets. They were already in the house anyway.
Unfortunately for pigs, the transition did not occur, for their starting position was much further back. They have become a more popular pet in recent years, but are unlikely to overtake dogs any time soon. This isn’t a call to stop eating meat and buy a pig to live in your bathroom. It is, however, a call to buy products that don’t test on animals and advocate for fauna that can’t themselves.
The Cat’s Out of the Bag
In the same family as the Tiger, Lion and Leopard, the domesticated cat is no less of a prolific hunter and killer. In the USA it is estimated that a combination of feral and domesticated cats are responsible for the deaths of billions of birds and mammals. Due to their nature they become debilitating to the local environments they inhabit.
An infamous example occurred on Stephens Island, Aotearoa, in the last decade of the 19th century. In short, the introduction of European settlers on this island also brought domesticated cats. An inhabitant of Stephens Island was the aptly named Stephens Island Wren, a tiny flightless bird. Flightless due to a lack of natural mammalian predators on the island. In the space of possibly a year, there were no more Stephens Island Wren, hunted to extinction.
This is unfortunately a trend that has continued into the modern day. In Australia in 2019, feral and domesticated cats killed more than 1.5 billion native animals. On average a British pet cat brings home 5 kills per year, but this is estimated to only be 23% of their actual kill count.
It looks a bit dire and worrisome. Would a pet duck do the same? Not unless you count grapes and oats as species worth protecting. But this isn’t a call to ban cats as pets. There are arguments that there is a hyper fixation on cats; Where other elements have inflated these statistics. For example, cats are more likely to kill an already injured or dying bird over a healthy one. Besides, my family owns a cat and I think he’s pretty great!
It comes back to questioning our perception of domesticated animals. Would other animals be given the same leniency? In considering the badger, since 2011 they have been culled for carrying Bovine TB, which is harmful to cattle. Additionally they are earmarked as the reason for a decline in the number of hedgehogs. However, the dramatic shift is more likely down to climate change and human activity. Badgers have been painted with a much harsher brush for comparable and arguably less environmental damage, than domesticated cats.
The Dog’s You Know What’s
Cats and Dogs have a lot to offer and deserve no less than our care and respect. Studies show that having pets can improve both physical and mental health. This ranges from the extra physical activity required to care for your pet to lowered blood pressure due to their calming influence.
Pet owners are also 36% less likely to report feeling lonely than those without pets. Having furry or feathered friends around is a great benefit to human wellbeing.
As with trying our best to be more environmentally mindful and work towards being more sustainable, the makeup of society must be viewed critically. Once again, this isn’t a message for you to become vegan and cast out your dogs and cats. It is more a reminder to be mindful and considerate of inherent biases we apply to nature. Where may these ideas come from? Are they even true? And did you know that pigs can sort items by colour?
Be Curious!
- Click here if you want to learn more about the intelligence of Pigs.
- If you want more information about the environmental impact of pets, read our article on the subject.
- Learn more about what other countries are doing to make farming more sustainable.
- If you want more information on the extinct Stephens Island Wren, read this book chapter on the subject.
