Issue paper (final)

古曉璇(961002012, Candy)
Professor Liang
English Composition 2A
Jan. 10, 2009
Think Twice before You Keep a Pet
In recently years, many moviemakers use animals as the main characters that impress audience with the affections between them and human beings. Such movies as《A tale of Mari and three puppies》、《Quill》、《Cats and Dogs》、《Eight Below》、《101 Dalmatians》,etc.. Dogs like Shiba inu、Labrador、Beagle、Husky、Dalmatians were very popular during the movies were playing in the theater. People buy them and afterwards find out that it is not easy to keep pets, especially it costs a lot of money to buy food, to pay for illness, to deal with everything that pets need. So, tragedies happen：innocent animals are abandoned.
In my issue paper, I will put my emphasis on dogs by using some news articles, film clips and journal articles to provides some useful information and thus support my points.
To make a thorough inquiry, why buying animals that appear in movies becomes a trend for people? After searching many news articles, I came up with some points：The first one is Curiosity. People are often attracted by the affections between animals and their hosts showed in the movie. For example, in the movie《Quill》, the main cute dog, Quill, us selected to be trained to guild blind people. It has stayed in different family. Through the interaction between it and its host, we can see the truest affection that it devotes to the man. When I was in the movie theater watching this movie, many people cried when they saw Quill died from illness at last. I believe that lots of people imagine that whether it will happen to them.
The second reason is the Fresh feelings. Many of the animals first appear in the movies when they are very young. As everybody knows, young animals are always so cute that it is hard for us not to look at them or even own them. Each time when I pass by a pet shop, I can not help myself but stand outside, looking at them and even having the idea of owning them. It’s very hard to resist the innocent eyes.
Last but not the least, Advertisement plays an important role in it. Businessmen only care about the profits movies bring. So, they have the movie trailers showed again and again on TV. They do their best to publicize the movies without paying attention to the effects that spread out through the public. Those moviemakers have the responsibilities to promote the concept that animals are not toys. Human beings can not just keep them when they are cute, healthy, and abandon them whey they are troubles. Animals need respects no matter they are dogs, cats, or even fishes.
Recently, there is a movie called 《Beverly Hills Chihuahua》by Walt Disney played in the theater. It features cute dog, Chihuahua, which lives in a luxurious life in the Beverly Hills. How it wears and how luxurious it lives, give the audience a desire to own a dog like it. But here the author points out the phenomenon that once a movie about dogs comes out; there must be first a craze of buying Chihuahua. The puppy mills will go into overdrive to churn out lots and lots of Chihuahua. From a humane perspective, the mother dogs end up with death due to producing dogs litter after litter, month after month. Every time when I think of this, I am wondering how could people do this to them. Do not they know how harmful this will affect the mother-dogs’ bodies? The other effect is that there will be a lot of abandoned dogs in the animal shelter after the trend. He uses an ironic sentence at the beginning of the movie, “I can tell you before it even open what will happen.” People find them aren’t cute anymore like they suddenly realize that they are not stuffed doll but creatures that have needs and problems. So, they are dumped.
It happened with "101 Dalmatians," when people caved in to their kids and bought Dalmatians, and then found out they were not as cute as they had thought before. Then, Dalmatians got dumped at animal shelters. It happened with "Babe" –so cute, so smart, so not suited to many owners. Dump them at the animal shelter.
To ban on that kind of movies is impossible. The government and the movie makers should appeal to the idea of adopting dogs from animal shelters. It’s a lot cheaper than buying a dog from pet shops. If so, the owners of puppy mills will not make so profits. Thus the mother animals will not be compelled to death.
Try to think that they are part of our family members, accompanying in times of stress and trouble. Times are hard, sure. There is news recently about more and more people abandon their dogs because they have no more money to keep them. They’re even harder for the animals that love you and depend on you. Once you decide to have them beside you, you have the responsibility to take care of them till them die. They deserve better from you.
Following are the internet resources that I would like to share. To begin with, I ‘ve found two interesting film clips about dogs. The first film is from the dog's point of view to show how human beings interact or treat them. They spend their whole life to live with people, accompanying people, no matter how ugly or poor the hosts are. Just as mentioned in the previous paragraph, they stay beside us in times of stress and trouble. There’s a sentence that touches me a lot. It goes with, "Now, you have a new career opportunity in another city, and you and they will be moving to an apartment that does not allow pets. You've made the right decision for your family, but there was a time when I was your only family." The host is going to dump the dog and find no where to send the dog. So the outcome of the poor dog is that it is sent to the animal shelter and waited for death. Aside from the words, the film clip also displays some strayed dogs’ pictures in the animal shelters. It makes me feel really sad when seeing their innocent eyes, and they seem like the tears are going down.
Another clip《Life of A Dog》is similar to the first one. The little dog’s host treats it good. He plays with it, takes walk with it. Everything goes very well. Until one day, he drives car out and takes it with him. It is ironic here. The dog thinks that he takes it out for fun, but he does not. It is about to be dumped. He tells it to stay and walks without looking at it. It is strayed. So the dog begins to chase. There’s a saying goes, “Dogs are the most loyal animals in the world.” It is true from the point that we see in the clip. The dog knows he is abandoned by its host. It still tries to chase the car no matter how dangerous the situation on the road is.
The above film clips remind me of my dog －Dodo. In March this year, my little dog was missing because my mom did not pay attention when she took Dodo out for a walk. As soon as I knew about it, I burst out crying, and was anxious whether Dodo was safe or not. I was afraid she would be bullied by bad guys or other dogs or even worse, dead. Fortunately, a nice woman saw it on the street and took her home. Upon seeing the flyer which I spend a lot of time on the street pasting them alone the road, she called me and gave Dodo back to us. After that, I pay much attention when I take her out, because she is already a member of our family. How will you feel when your family member get lost and never come back?
Animal can not talk. We know nothing about whether they have languages or feelings. Do they have souls or consciousness? Therefore, I would like to focus my paper on ethical part.
Since my topic is started from movie dogs and then abandoned animals (usually dogs) animal. There must have some kind of relations to animal welfare. So now, I would introduce the origins of the development of animal welfare. “Animal welfare refers to the viewpoint that it is morally acceptable for humans to use nonhuman animals for food, in animal research, as clothing, and in entertainment, so long as unnecessary suffering is avoided. The position is contrasted with the animal rights position, which holds that other animals should not be used by, or regarded as the property of humans.” Concerning the misuse of animal, people in ancient time used them for experiment in cruel ways. As time goes by, more and more people get the ideas that animals are also creatures. They may have feelings. As in the context mentions, there are five freedom of animals that latter developed. They are Freedom from thirst and hunger, Freedom from discomfort, Freedom from pain, injury and disease, Freedom to express normal behavior, and Freedom from fear and distress. But there was a time that people denied the thing that animals could feel. Another difference is Region. People in different areas have different attitude toward animal welfare. For example, British people avoid pain even if this means killing the animals. While in countryside, they regard animals as a more complicated element of their lives, because they may use animal as tools to do field work or hunting. Just like our ancestors. They thought of cows as a sacred animal due to its devotion to the farmland.
To continue the question, “Do animals have souls or consciousness?” ,Klaus Wilhelm said that “Concerning that Animal lovers insist their fellow creatures experience joy, sympathy, fear and grief, but scientifically, it is hard to say DO ANIMALS HAVE FEELINGS?”
The author came up with some examples like elephants, dogs, even laboratory rats show emotions. Recently, scienticists begin to believe that mammals, at least, have some form of emotions, and doing research about this topic is popular now. He uses some examples, such as elephants, roughhousing chimpanzees, dogs, laboratory rats, and mammals to prove that animals do have some kind of emotions or we can say feelings. Investigators once watched a herd of elephants gathered around a stillborn calf. The pachyderms used their trunks to touch the dead infants. They care about the victims and provide support. Other animals also show emotions. Dogs yelp to other dogs to play. Laboratory rats chirp when they are tickled. After years of research, scientists finally believe that mammals at least have some kind of emotions.
Charles Darwin, the English naturalist and father of revolutionary theory wrote an entire book entitled “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animal” No one can deny that animals have emotions, he concluded, given the striking similarities between human and animal behavior. According Darwinism, every organism has one overriding goal, to reproduce, as well and as often as possible. Joy is a primary emotion, along with anger and sadness. Animals do not have to have the same feeling as human. They can be happy in different ways.
I totally agree with idea that animals have feelings. To connect the whole issue that related to animals, and animal welfare, it is very important to discuss the issue that whether animals have feeling. Human beings are prior to any other kind of animals. We have the obligation to respect the live of each kind animal on earth no matter how tiny they are.


References:
Patt Morrison (2008, Sep.30) .Abandoned movie dog—Chihuahuas Dalmatians—and the voiceless foreclose. Los Angeles Times

Animal Welfare(n.d.).Retrieved January 10, 2009, from Wikipedia　http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_welfare

Life of A Dog.(2007). Retrieved January 10, 2009, from Youtube Wedsite: http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=1da6hynh_lo&eurl=http://candyku.blogspot.com/search/label/%E3%80%90Annotation%E3%80%91

How Could You (2007). Retrieved January 10,2009, from Toutube Website: http://tw.youtube.com/index?&ytsession=Tq0_psHyDBNKa2oDueT_uQqDsiGzPfM8X49UzIitqjJoMqOGkpjeI_cyX4bvHonJVQ2iOraVp6jXS8YjwWolZkb8SbzR-n32U2_3ebmRisnC5CftTLXzhh--4U6odDUfwBpigNo7h22GjV92oP8m6fSTWgbBeOpfS1URiT6YFJslE5NanQBYgE9cgOVq5Of_S3djF6TuylWCYzzX0dweSQ28V0KnGV4jmx5lJHMj8bk

Talan and Jamie,(2006). Do animals have feelings? Scientific American Mind; Vol. 17 Issue 1, p24-29, 6p, 5 color.