Domestic Animals, Humans, and Leisure

Rights, Welfare, and Wellbeing

Janette Young, Neil Carr

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781315457437
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Industria dell'ospitalità e del turismo
• Index: Business

Domestic animals are an integral component of human leisure experience and can enhance the physical, social, and mental wellbeing of humans. The interplay of human and animal experiences of justice, wellbeing, rights, and roles within leisure is the central theme of this book. Research explores the position of domesticated animals in human leisure experiences, in a wide array of leisure settings. Chapters question whether domestic animals may have a desire for leisure that is different from human leisure, whether animals have and wish to fulfil needs for meaningful leisure or non-leisure, and whether human leisure needs and desires may coincide or contradict wellbeing interests of animals.

This book provides a venue for the dissemination and exploration of research, which champions the welfare and rights of these animals to have their needs and interests in leisure recognised. It moves the debate about animals in leisure beyond the current limits which have seen research mainly confined to the exotic 'other' rather than more mundane, everyday domestic animals. This book will be of interest to individuals in the fields of tourism ethics, zoology, animal behaviour, and leisure studies.

1 Introduction

Janette Young and Neil Carr

Introduction

Domestic animals are an integral component of many human leisure experiences and in this position can enhance the physical, social and mental wellbeing of humans (Brooks et. al. 2016, Rijken and van Beek 2011; Wood et. al. 2007). At the same time it is increasingly recognised that as sentient beings these animals have their own rights, welfare and wellbeing needs (Kymlicka and Donaldson 2014; Garner and O’Sullivan 2016). The interplay of human and animal experiences of justice, wellbeing, rights and roles within leisure is the central hub of this book. Here authors explore the position of domesticated animals in human leisure experiences, and the position of leisure in the lives of these animals. Within this context the book, and the individual chapters within it, explore whether domestic animals may have a desire for leisure that is distinct from human leisure, whether animals have and wish to fulfil needs for meaningful leisure or non-leisure, and whether human leisure needs and desires may coincide or conversely contradict domesticated animal leisure and wellbeing interests.

Our aim in compiling this book has been to provide a venue for the dissemination and exploration of cutting edge research on domesticated animals and leisure. Such an opportunity enables forwarding of knowledge in this area while championing the welfare and rights of domesticated animals in relation to their own leisure needs. Within this context, this book is not an ‘end’. Rather, it is intended to build on the work in the field that has gone before it¹ and help to push for further research on domesticated animals and leisure.

Why domesticated animals?

Domestic animals have received far less attention in the leisure field than their binary other – ‘wild animals’. Carr (2015a) documents the relative wealth of books that have encompassed wild animals in explorations of predominately touristic leisure spaces. Why might this imbalance be the case though? Four core arguments are noted in this chapter, and these carry through to the conclusion of the book. Firstly, it may be suggested that domesticated animals are largely overlooked as part of the unequal power relationship that exists between humans and animals. By and large humans make decisions and control domestic animals’ leisure experiences and opportunities. It is humans who decide the what, where and with who of domesticated animals lives. When these animals’ leisure is considered, it is usually as an adjunct to human leisure experiences; animals’ own needs, wishes or desires are rarely considered a legitimate factor. This imbalance of power weaves through the book and is explored in more detail in the conclusion. Secondly, domestic animals may be overlooked because in general we tend to give little or no conscious thought to, and even at times despise, the domestic. It is every day and mundane. This fits with the notion forwarded by Edward Said (2003) that the foreign and largely unknown is seen as far more attractive and inspiring than one’s own culture and environment. In this way, domestic animals may be seen to lack the appeal of the exotic. Thirdly, the relative lack of attention paid to some domestic animals by leisure researchers may be due to an inherent tension across the spectrum of domesticated animals. This tension exists between the domesticated animals we see ourselves as sharing our human lives with (the dominant focus of the chapters in this book), and those animals (also domesticated) overtly utilised for human purposes; be this animal to animal fighting (see the chapter by Cohen) or simply feeding one domesticated animal (the factory farmed) to another (the pet cat or dog). In this way, it may not be surprising that the domestic animals most studied are the ones we love the most. Finally, related to the mundane and the notion of domestication is the argument that domestic animals, particularly pets, are not ‘real’ animals but instead have been bred into existence by humans. Indeed, Miklósi (2007, 1) notes that dogs, probably the ultimate domesticated animal, have often been identified as “artificial animals”. As such, they may be identified as human constructs less worthy of investigation than the ‘real’ wild animals (Bradshaw 2011).

These issues are intertwined, and glimpses of them can be discerned across the chapters as the complexities and at times contradictions inherent within and across understandings of human and animal ‘leisure’ are explored. We return to them in the conclusion. For now though, neither editors of the book nor the other contributors would agree that domestic animals are less worthy of attention than wild animals nor that they are somehow less real than their wild counterparts. As such, domestic animals are as deserving of study in general, and with specific reference to leisure, as wild animals.

Defining domestic and domesticated animals

So what exactly are ‘domestic’ or ‘domesticated’ animals? What do the terms ‘domestic’ and ‘domesticated’ mean of themselves?

Online searching readily reveals several definitions of ‘domestic’ including (www.dictionary.com): “of or relating to the home, the household, household affairs, or the family” and “no longer wild”. Hence ‘domestic’ or ‘domesticated’ can be seen as a contrasting or negative binary to the notion of ‘wild’. Certainly there is a position in the animal studies field that domestic animals are somehow corruptions of the ‘natural order’, that humans have interfered with nature creating un-natural, domesticated animals (Francione 2009; Hall 2006). The definition provided by Clutton-Brock (1989 in Eddy 2003) encompasses this notion of human control or interference in domesticated animal lives in general and with specific reference to reproduction. Domesticated animals are: “[a] species of animal which has been artificially selected by humans over a number of generations to possess specific traits and over which humans have reproductive control” (100). In other words, domestic animals experience a level of control by humans that is in contrast to that experienced by wild animals. These animals are kept from making the most basic of choices (who they will reproduce with) by humans.

Carr (2015a) suggests that animals can be seen as fitting into a continuum from domestic through to wild with dogs and cats often seen as the exemplars of domesticated animals. A common terminology for these exemplar animals is “pets”. It is estimated that more than half of households globally have pets (GfK 2016). There are many definitions of pets but generally they tend to hinge on the notions that pets are animals with which we share our domestic spaces, they are named, they are not readily eaten and humans have them predominately for reasons of companionship. Pets have faced a paradoxical treatment in the academic literature. On one hand they have been construed as privileged for the close relationships they may have with humans and the benefits that this may offer individual animals and even species (Carr 2014). On the other hand they have been critiqued as ‘not real’ animals (Francione 2009; Hall 2006), and seen as frivolous and extraneous to serious human experiences (Young and O’Dwyer 2015).

Aside from pets, there are other species that have also been domesticated in the manner defined by Clutton-Brock (1989) but these animals do not generally share our homes and lives in the same way. Species such as sheep, cattle, horses and camels are animals that are generally de-personalised, seen as utilitarian means to fulfil human interests and agendas such as transport, and human consumption of food and other ‘products’. In other words, not all domesticated species are equally domestic. To complicate things further, individual animals may be treated in quite different ways. For example, there is the house lamb who becomes the family pet sheep, the dog who is released to guard at night and locked in an outdoor pen during the day, and as revealed in the chapters in this book that focus on horses (Danby, and Henderson), whilst fulfilling a utilitarian role of recreational transport, some humans and horses may feel a unique sense of bonding. But their relative size means that in general horses do not share human domestic spaces.

The domestication of species and individual animals, and human and animal experiences of leisure occur within and are shaped by the diversity of human cultures. Most of the species discussed as domestic in this book are killed and devoured by humans somewhere on the globe. Eating dogs is still seen as an integral part of some cultures, including those where dogs are also seen as pets (Podberscek 2016, 2009). Guinea pigs are on the menu in some South American and African countries (Yiva et al. 2014, Graham, Vascon and Trueba 2016), and horses are eaten by humans in some European countries (Belaunzaran et al. 2015).

Hence concepts of ‘domesticated’ and ‘domestic’ animals can be seen as broad and flexible. However, these animals have a common connector in their relationship to humans either individually (kept contained or reliant upon humans) and/or generationally (products of human reproductive management). This is distinct from the relationship that exists between animals considered wild and humans, who may be impacted by human behaviours but have a less direct connection to human society.

Domesticated animals and human leisure

A key argument for seeking to explore the leisure needs and positions of domestic animals in human leisure is the sheer scale of this population. A current indication of domesticated animal numbers is that there are now around three chickens and one bovine per person worldwide (Huffpost 2011). In addition, 57 percent of households globally are estimated to have pets, with dogs (33 percent) and cats (23 percent) being the dominant species of choice, although significant numbers of households have fish (12 percent) and pet birds (6 percent) as well (GfK 2016).

Domesticated animals play a diverse variety of roles in human leisure experiences. There are people who breed animals as a leisure pursuit, and there are those who engage in sport with their domesticated animals. For example, Hultsman (2015) provides a detailed look at a range of sports that utilise pet dogs, while domesticated dogs have also been widely used in human leisure pursuits such as hunting and racing (see Carr (2015b) for a discussion of greyhound racing and Carr (2014) for an examination of dog sledding as both a sport and holiday attraction). While dog agility is well known, attempts have also been made to create a cat agility sport (www.catagility.com/). It is, of course, not just dogs that are utilised in human-constructed sport. Horses, camels (Khalaf 2000), cows (www.compasscup.com.au/) and hamsters (Holmes 2017) amongst others, have all been raced for human entertainment. Horses are also widely ridden as a leisure experience (see chapters by Danby, and Henderson), while riding the donkey at the beach was a Victorian innovation for tourists in the UK that can still be found in various parts of the world today (Blakeway and Cousquer, forthcoming). Other animals, including mules, lamas and alpacas, are utilised as beasts of burden for tourists while dogs, proving once again their adaptability within human society, are now utilised to meet and greet holiday visitors and calm nervous or stressed individuals at airports (Carr 2014).

Domesticated animals may also form an integral component of the leisure and holiday landscape. For example, Herdwick sheep, whose fleece is virtually worthless for farmers are, today, a prominent feature of the rural landscape of the Lake District National Park in the UK. They are not there for agricultural purposes as much as they are there because visitors to the Park expect them to be there. Similarly, when visiting Scotland we expect to be able to see the hairy Highland cow depicted in Figure 1.1 (is it a bull or a cow – arguably, to the average tourist it does not matter as long as it is appropriately shaggy and horny), not just some ‘ordinary’ cow. Likewise, when visiting Jersey we expect to see a Jersey cow (Figure 1.2) (not unlike the issue of the sex of the Highland cow, how many people can tell the difference between the Jersey and Guernsey cow?). Domesticated animals are not just part of the expected leisure landscape; they are also increasingly visitor attractions in their own right. More and more farms are diversifying their activities away from traditional agricultural activities to offer visitors the opportunity to pet, touch, feed and even milk, domesticated animals such as cows, sheep and goats (Adam 2001; Ollenburg 2008; Wilson 2007). This industry both helps to provide for the leisure needs of people and generates significant revenue and employment in servicing these needs (Veeck, Che and Veeck 2006). This is yet another reason why domesticated animals should not be overlooked in leisure research.

Figure 1.1 Highland cow, or perhaps bull

Photograph: Neil Carr

Figure 1.2 Jersey cow

Photograph: Neil Carr

Chapters in this book focus on a range of human-designed leisure spaces that ostensibly bring together human and animal leisure – dog shows (Dabrowska), dog training (Hurley and O’Dwyer), pet-friendly holiday locales (Blichfeldt and Sakacova) and horse riding establishments (Henderson, and Danby). A further reason for suggesting more research needs to be conducted on domestic animals and leisure relates to the changing position of at least some of these animals in society in general and individual families in particular. While this shift is most clearly seen in relation to dogs, it has, and still is, arguably occurring in relation to other animals as well. With specific reference to dogs, Carr (2014) has discussed how they are becoming an increasingly central component of many human families. They are shifting from having been an animal, to being a pet, to being a companion or member of the human family. This shift is leading to changing demands from humans no longer willing to leave their pets at home while they go on a leisure experience. It has also led to the rise of leisure services ostensibly aimed at the leisure desires of pets.

Leisure, rights and welfare

The definition of leisure employed within this book is broad, incorporating notions of activity and time spent by humans in non-labour, with some sense of “enjoyment, pleasure, self-fulfilment, and identify construction” (Carr 2015a, 6). Leisure has been defined as a human right (Veal 2015) and this book starts to take us into the space of considering animal rights to leisure. As a right for humans, the benefits of leisure have been well documented. It is seen as offering the opportunity to increase physical and emotional wellbeing (Symons, O’Sullivan and Polman 2016; Denovan and Macaskill 2016), and facilitating individuals in search of themselves (Kelly 1981; Clarke and Critcher 1985...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Behind bars: contradictions in the expectations and experiences of life with marginalised companion animals
• 3 Dog shows as casual leisure: asymmetry of human and animal experience
• 4 Dog showing and training: enjoyable hobbies or destructive practices that reinforce speciesist ideologies?
• 5 Off-leash recreation in an urban national recreation area: conflict between domesticated dogs, wildlife and semi-domesticated humans
• 6 Walking the dog – chore or leisure?
• 7 Recentring companion species wellbeing in the leisure experience: towards multispecies flourishing through dog walking
• 8 Domesticated dogs and ‘doings’ during the holidays
• 9 From labour to leisure: the relocation of animals in modern Western society
• 10 Post-humanistic insight into human-equine interactions and wellbeing within leisure and tourism
• 11 Pampered prisoners: meeting the ethological needs of the modern sport horse to enhanced equine welfare
• 12 Human-initiated animal fights
• 13 Domestic animals’ leisure, rights, wellbeing: nuancing ‘domestic’, asymmetries and into the future
• Index