A central tenet of animal rights philosophy is that all species are equal; humans are not superior to any species including the cold-blooded and the non-blooded. I don’t know about you but all the goldfish (a type of carp by the way) I’ve had never seemed to be as fond of me as my collie Rocky or even my husband’s lovebird Chester (though Chester loves my husband more I have to admit). Certainly Rocky will go off his food and mope when separated from the family (he has the uncanny ability to count us; I guess we are his sheep as well as his masters) something that never happened with the goldfish. So how can any thinking person call these species dog and goldfish equal?
As observant Jews our obligations to animals is to look out for their welfare and not to cause gratuitous harm to them – lo tza’ar ba’alei chayim. This is a strong obligation starting with the injunction about resting animals on Shabbos and extending to when one feeds animals (one is not permitted to eat before he has placed food before his animals. But animal welfare is by no means the same as animal rights. Let me give you an example:
Thanksgiving before last I reminded my husband to take the turkey carcass out from the house since Rocky has an absolute love for roasted poultry. Dear Spouse said yes then went to take his post-prandial nap. I went to our library children went to the family room. Suddenly I heard a loud crunch! emanate from the kitchen. Running upstairs what did I see but my collie happily lying next to the garbage eating turkey bones to his heart’s content. Reprimanding Rocky I roused Dear Spouse to take out the remainder of the carcass. Poor Rocky developed a bit of illness from his unexpected feast which culminated in his expelling the unchewed turkey spine. At this my older daughter (the pre-veterinary college student and neighborhood dog trainer/ dog sitter/ dog expert) said the turkey spine could have caused Rocky quite severe internal injury had he not expelled it.
The point of the anecdote is that Rocky being a dog – an animal if you will – could not help himself: the instinct to eat the poultry carcass overcame his training to keep away from the kitchen garbage pail. Despite his illness and our displeasure (collies by the way are the perfect Jewish dog – they feel guilt when they do something wrong unlike most other breeds) he’d do it again if we neglected to take out all poultry carcasses and bones after dinner. This is because an animal cannot overcome its desire to do what it perceives will give it immediate pleasure.
A human even a fairly young child would be able to overcome instinct or curiosity and stay away from an object that is off-limits. A child as young as two years of age will already have learned to refrain from doing many things through an association with pain or with parents’ displeasure but an animal even an intelligent species like a dog and an intelligent breed like a collie will not associate the later pain or discomfort with what it did earlier. Thus it is up to us to keep him from inadvertently harming himself.
We are the caretakers of our darling collie: we look out for him because he cannot look out for himself. We love him but he is not our equal. This is why animals cannot be said to have rights.