University of North Texas 
This interview was conducted by UNT graduate students Richard Gamez and Jason Kiss for the Bhagwan Adinath Animal Humanities Initiative in partnership with the UNT Oral History Program. It has been edited for length and clarity. All photos are courtesy of Lou Tonge.
Richard Gamez: Lou, why don't you introduce yourself, tell us a bit about yourself and your work with animals, how long you have lived in the DFW area, and anything else you would like to share about your background and the organizations you have worked for, which include The Zend: Final Farm and Sanctuary, the Texas Humane Legislation Network, the pet food pantry at Operation Kindness, and your work in a local animal shelter. We’re really privileged to have you here. I'll just let you introduce yourself.
Lou Tonge: Sure, yeah. Well, I'm Lou and I have been in the DFW area for the past five years. I moved here in August 2021 from England to come here to UNT for grad school.
I initially thought I was just going to be here for a master's and then go home, but then my plans changed, and I carried on to do the PhD, in part because I was really enjoying what I was doing with animal organizations locally. I grew up with animals. I grew up with pets and so have always kind of had that personal connection to animals. And when I was about 13, I think I went vegetarian, and then when I was 15, I went vegan, which were big decisions in my life at the time, and decisions that were influenced by, you know, certain media that I was consuming. But more directly, my involvement with animals in the last few years has mostly been volunteer based. So, I have been volunteering with The Zend for the past three or four years. They are a vegan farmed animal sanctuary. Most of the animals that they have are animals that would have been in the food system or were in the food system but were either injured or surrendered, or for some reason other reason end up being rescued by them. They have probably about 100 animals. They have long horn cows, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, ducks, rabbits, cats and dogs. So, they have a lot of animals. I volunteer with them probably once or twice a week, every week, and have done for the last three or four years. I also did a little bit of volunteer work for the Texas Humane Legislation Network. That is an organization that is mostly focused on companion animals – so, pets – and is fighting for stronger legislation around the welfare of companion animals in various ways. For instance, they would like to end puppy mills and have previously campaigned for pet stores to stop selling dogs and various other kinds of companion animal welfare measures.
RG: Let me interrupt you really quick. I want to specifically ask that question a little bit later, but thank you for that introduction. Was there anything in general you wanted to say about more about what brought you to Texas and that are, that maybe are not going to be in my questions.
LT: Well, what brought me to Texas was the philosophy program at UNT. I was looking for somewhere that explicitly focused on environmental philosophy and where I could pursue animal studies. I knew that there wasn't really anybody here that necessarily specializes in animal studies, but, you know, because it's an environmental program, there's like, some natural synergy between those things, and this was one of very few places in the world that does specialize in that.
RG: So okay, well, that's wonderful. Thank you for that introduction. But I'd like to now focus a little bit more specifically on public support, especially around here in Denton, or even nationally. But then, in this set of questions, the community support, or any kind of system of support for the creatures you care for—do you feel that there is public support for what you're doing, and if so, how have you seen it?
LT: Yeah, so I would say that there is a difference between the work I do with companion animals. For the animal shelters that I have volunteered with, and I now work for a local municipal animal shelter, I would say that there is public support. There is a lot of public support for that work. On the other side of things, the farmed animal work—so, like the stuff I do with The Zend—there is a small community of support around that, but it is nowhere near as large as the public support for companion animal welfare issues. Which, in my understanding, is pretty standard for these kinds of issues. Generally, companion animal welfare receives an incredible amount of funding in comparison to farmed animal welfare.
In Denton, specifically, there is a lot of support. The community is very supportive of companion animal welfare. There is a foundation, I think they are called DASF, which stands for Denton Animal Support Foundation, which is a nonprofit that raises money and supports companion animals in a variety of ways. They often do free vaccine clinics, pet food pantries, that kind of thing. They also do fund the City of Denton’s animal shelter in certain ways, or they help to fund it. It's not the only funder of the City's animal shelter, but they do help with funding. Denton has a really strong trap-neuter-release program for cats. It seems there’s a lot of passion in the community about that. In the animal shelter where I work, we get a lot of people come in with cats that they have trapped for TNR. So yeah, I would say public support for that is huge. People are really into it. There's a lot of monetary support for it. There's a lot of community support for it. The farmed animal welfare there is some support for, but it's a very small community. It's kind of limited, really, to the vegan community of DFW, which, being in Texas – such a high beef producing state—is a relatively small community.
RG: Do you how do you feel that it could improve. And then another follow up question would be, how do you reach out for help?
LT: Yeah, um, I would say in terms of farmed animal welfare or wellbeing, it could improve just with further exposure, to be honest. I think a lot of people don't really know about them unless they are already embedded in these kind of niche vegan communities. I don't think many people realize that these types of sanctuaries are out there. So just, just increased exposure, I think would help a lot in terms of gaining more support. In terms of the kind of companion animal side of things, I would say the support there is already pretty strong. But if it were to improve, I would say for me, one way it could improve is, I don't know, maybe, like increased education…
Um, how should I put this, like increased education or increased awareness about being empathetic to the people that care for companion animals? There is often a lot of stigma around people who surrender their animals to shelters and people who can't afford their pets, and the perpetuation of that stigma is not helpful necessarily for the people or the pets involved. And so, I think in terms of support for companion animal welfare, just like increased empathy and increased awareness of pet owners’ situations would go a long way.
RG: Thank you very much. So, do you feel like you need help increasing that awareness? Or could you describe any efforts you've made to increase or educate the public or procure more support in that way?
LT: Yeah, I mean that that might be, in some ways, a difficult thing for me to answer, because I don't own my own operation, you know? I just volunteer or work for these places that already exist. But one way that I know the Zend—so, on the farmed animal side of things—one way that the Zend tries to increase that awareness is that they host lots of events. Many of them are free. They invite people out, they cook for them, they do open volunteer days and tours of the sanctuary and that kind of thing. They do a lot of social media posting. They've been on the local news, I think, in Fort Worth. So, they definitely… I mean, they always could use help. They always could use, like, further promotion, but they are pretty good at doing those things.
I would say, in terms of companion animal welfare, my involvement in trying to increase awareness about these things is by volunteering for these programs, letting other people know about them and about the philosophies behind them.
RG: Yeah, wonderful. There's kind of a little related question. I should ask, what organizations appear to help you the most? What organizations, if any, help you the most, and which ones are the most helpful? And if not, which ones do you think could be the most helpful if we could pass through them, so to speak, in terms of support for this kind of work?
So, I was wondering if there was like other organizations, and it could be like schools, public schools, businesses, community centers, other schools, or even churches or mosque or any other kind of organizations that team seem to gravitate toward you. Or any type of organizations that, maybe they're not specifically animal centered, but they want to help out; anything like that?
LT: Sure, I mean, I think UNT has been a really good place for that. In particular, they have a new initiative. I can't entirely remember what all of the letters stand for, but it's called LEAPH, which is a new project by UNT. It's focusing on public-facing humanities work, and they are incredibly supportive of engaging with local animal organizations in particular, and trying to educate the public, and increase awareness about the sanctuaries or the shelters that they're partnering with. So, that has been a great place. Yeah, that has been a great place.
RG: What about the children that come here and do the projects downstairs in the Environmental Sciences building? Have they been involved, or is there a potential for that?
LT: I am not aware of any involvement that they have necessarily had with animal welfare in particular. I know that the education they do in the environmental building at UNT is very much focused on environmental sustainability and water systems, that kind of thing. Not so much animal welfare, but I'm sure there certainly is a potential that that that could grow into more animal-centered work.
RG: Children seem to be a natural magnet. I'm thinking also about the Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts, or youth groups. I was thinking maybe even the people in recovery or people getting a second chance after being, you know, spending some time in prison… maybe rehabilitation. And that's a later question I wanted to ask, but I guess I can ask it now. Do you feel like there's a rehabilitative aspect to your work? I know you mentioned before that there was that kind of two-way process where you felt so much return for caring for the animals.
LT: Yeah, absolutely. I think that care is incredibly important when we are thinking about our relationships with animals. I think it's so central or so embedded into human and animal relationships. But I think we often, kind of societally or broadly, tend to think of care for animals as being a one-way thing where it's like humans care for animals and that's how care works in that relationship. I don't really believe that, and I do believe that animals can and do care also for humans and for one another. And so yes, I do find the work that I do to be very rewarding or rehabilitative or something like that, because, I don't think it's just a one-way street. I think it's it goes both ways, and that's mostly what my dissertation focuses on.
RG: Wonderful. I got one more question, but I feel like maybe, Jason, did you want to interject on any of these questions? I know you've got a list of wonderful questions here…did you want to jump into any any part that we've discussed already?
Jason Kiss: Yes. Thank you, Richard. So, are there any uplifting antidotes from your experiences, where, like you said, the volunteer work did feel especially rewarding? Any specific stories? Like, an animal that was rehabilitated, that it was great to see them come back and become healthy, or anything that you would like to share with the general public?
LT: Sure, I think in some ways this is difficult… Sorry, this is a difficult question for me to answer, because so much of it is rewarding in small ways! For instance, I don't know, maybe a good example from the Zend is when last year, they took in a tiny little pig, Punky. She's a pot-bellied pig. When they first got her, she was, I don't know, she was like, eight weeks old or something. She was teeny tiny and she had been bought at the Canton trading markets, and so she had been in a difficult situation. Even though she was only like eight weeks old, she had been passed around from person to person, so she had kind of a lot of instability before she came to the Zend. But now, over the last year she's been there at the sanctuary, she has grown. She's very healthy. She loves to be around people—like, it is just very clear that that she loves her life there, and that she's very happy. She likes to run around and play in the grass, and she likes to roll over on her tummy. And she really likes it if you pet her tummy. So, that's kind of small in some ways, but just getting to see these animals grow up and, you know, clearly enjoy their life is very rewarding.
JK: Very cool, very cool. So, in the book On the Basis of Morality, the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer states, “compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to living creatures cannot be a good man.” As a PhD student in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at UNT, are there any particular philosophers or religious figures you find illuminating who advocate for animal welfare? Any you would recommend to the general public?
LT: Yeah, so I think in some ways, I have a little bit of a complicated relationship with philosophy and animals specifically. I don't necessarily favor a lot of traditional animal rights literature or more traditional animal ethics literature, for a variety of reasons. But, the reason that I decided to come here and pursue philosophy specifically was because I had previously been in a politics department. That's what my bachelor's degree was in, and so I had done a class there that was about animals and political theory that I absolutely loved. Animals in political theory is a particular subset of animal studies or animal philosophy. And it's something that, again, I have a bit of a strange relationship with, because a lot of it doesn't really resonate with me anymore. But I would still recommend it to others, because it was what changed my perspective about a lot of things, and I was kind of able to grow from there. It’s literature that I would therefore recommend to other people who maybe don't necessarily know too much about this kind of thing.
So, in particular, the book that really set me on this path is Zoopolis by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka. I think it came out in 2011 and is considered one of the big texts in what's known as the "political turn in animal ethics." Again, it's a book that I don't necessarily resonate with anymore, or don't necessarily share all of its beliefs, but it's something that really, really helped me to change the way that I understood human and animal relationships and what the future of human-animal relationships could be. So yes, I think that's something that I would recommend to anyone!
RG: Follow up question—I want to interrupt your flow, Jason, but it's kind of like related to my last question. I think you know I was going to ask you about collaboration with other organizations that you've already worked with, and other animal organizations we talked about before, and other organizations in general. But, since you brought it up, you're changing different perspectives, especially from the political arena you’re now entering into with your particular "care." There's got to be a lot of different views out there, even within your circle of friends or friendly organizations. So, I would like to hear more about the collaboration with those organizations and how you work through differing philosophies.
LT: There certainly are a lot of different philosophies, even amongst people who are all working on the same issues. Some people do take more of a traditional animal rights position. Other people see that as being opposed to what's generally known as "animal welfare." Some people think animal rights and welfare can work together. Some people are working outside of those frameworks all together. I would say that I don't love either of those frameworks, and would prefer to pursue alternatives, but think that there are still merits to both. And so, yes, this type of difference in philosophies does come up a lot, but I think that, or I hope that, and my experience so far has been that there is a lot of understanding of these different positions. People are generally fairly well-educated about what these other philosophies are, or these other ways of kind of doing animal care work. You know, it's very basic, but like just having a conversation with someone – understanding their side of things, even if you don't necessarily agree – is always good for collaboration. Sometimes, focusing on the task of animal care rather than your particular philosophy or approach can also help to make the collaboration smoother. But generally, I would say people that are already involved in this field, even if they do have different philosophies, are generally very understanding and kind of willing to come to some kind of compromise to get the job done.
RG: Yeah. Basically, you make your steps very clear about what you're trying to accomplish, and then work through those. Or is there a lot of dialog? Or is there more collaboration and planning on long-term and short-term?
LT: Um, yeah. I mean, it depends what specific job you are doing or what specific organization you're in. I find that in companion animal welfare, that there is a lot of dialog. There's a lot of conferences, papers, even just like online spaces and forums, where people do have a lot of these conversations and discussions to try and work out these differences in philosophy. But when you're actually on the job, say at an animal shelter, often the way that people work out these differences is just by saying, “we’ve got to do what's best for the animal.” And so as long as we can all agree to that, then it doesn't necessarily matter what other philosophy we may have behind why we should do this or that. As long as we can agree that we're going to do what's best for the animal, then we can carry on with the task at hand.
JK: Fabulous.
RG: Well, thank you very much. Most of these questions, I think, will be Jason's from this point on, but I'll wave my hand next time.
Okay, Jason, go ahead.
JK: Right. Thank you, Richard. So, you mentioned your dissertation coincides with your research and volunteer work. Your dissertation primarily focuses on the exploitation and harm of domestic animals. Puppy mills are one obvious area in which dogs are mistreated, and racing greyhounds that did not perform well were often euthanized in the past. In what other ways are domestic animals exploited? Feel free to go into as much detail as you would like.
LT: I mean, so, so many ways. In terms of companion animals, yeah, you're absolutely right. Puppy mills is still a huge issue. In companion animal welfare, there is quite a large focus to on animal abuse and how animals are often caught up in domestic violence situations. So those are certainly all ways that companion animals are exploited. Greyhound Racing is, I believe, only legal in one state now. I think it's West Virginia, but is still legal in many other places. It's still legal in the UK. It's still legal in Ireland and still legal in Australia, and it's still fairly, you know, there's still a decent amount of money that goes into it. You know, I personally don't agree with horse racing. That's another way that domesticated animals are exploited.
In terms of farmed animals, I think factory farms, intensive feed operations, those kinds of things are perhaps one of the largest sources of animal exploitation, or perhaps the largest source of animal exploitation across the world. That’s because of the sheer volume, like, the sheer number—horrifying numbers of animals that go through those systems every year. Meat production is increasing still, and so the number of animals that do go through those systems just increases and increases. I think those are just kind of the obvious things, so they're only scratching the surface. I think there are so many ways the animals are exploited.
And again, you know, for many people, this kind of depends on their particular philosophy. There are some philosophers or some political theorists who even think that working animals are exploited. For instance, guide dogs. There are some philosophers out there that would say that even that type of work is exploitative because it is a relationship that is entirely based on coercion. I don't know that I necessarily share that opinion, but, you know, it's just to give you some perspective in terms of the range of opinions that are out there about what constitutes "animal exploitation."
JK: Yeah, I've kind of thought too about like, teaching dogs tricks. You're forcing them to learn tricks. But on the other hand, that's a bonding mechanism between the person and their pet too. So, as I see it, it's like a double-edged sword. Do you agree with that? Where there is some coercion, and with, you know, forcing tricks upon a dog, but also there's a bonding element to it.
LT: Yes, absolutely. In the "animal welfare" sphere of literature, there is a particular kind of subfield of literature, I think that mostly comes out of psychology and social work, which is focused on what they call the “human-animal bond.” And this subfield of scholars are really interested in research that supports showing how much benefit there is to human-animal relationships for both the humans and the animals that are involved. Absolutely I think that, yes, inevitably, in any human relationship with at least a companion animal, there is always going to be an inherent power differential or power imbalance. There is always likely going to be some level of coercion or control that is exerted over the animal. However, I don't think that that necessarily means that we shouldn't have them around. Again, there are some philosophers who believe that because coercion is always involved in human relationships with companion animals, that it means that we shouldn't have them altogether, that we should sterilize them all and should not allow new puppies and kittens to be born. I don't share that view. I do think the relationship between humans and animals is beneficial for everybody involved, even, you know, even when there are minimal and reasonable amounts of kind of coercion that happen. For instance, the type of coercion that might happen when you offer your dog a treat for doing something that is also going to benefit them, right?
JK: And being you're from England, what are your thoughts on the Westminster Dog Show?
LT: That's a good question. And I don't really know. Originally, like 10 or so years ago, when I first kind of became a vegan, I was very strictly against any of those types of things. However, I would say I've relaxed over the years and have thought about how some of these relationships can be beneficial for the animals. I don't know that it's necessarily right to just automatically deem them as, like, immoral or something like this. I don't love the idea of dog shows, maybe in part because there are definitely some issues with like the classification of breeds and how that came about. But in terms of just dogs doing agility courses with humans or something like that… I think if it's clear that the dog is enjoying themselves and likes to do that, then why not? Right?
JK: To quote Arthur Schopenhauer, again—actually, I don't know if this is a quote of his. I know on the internet there's usually quotes floating around that are inaccurately attributed to a philosopher, but this one really does kind of go hand in hand with his thoughts on animal rights and animal welfare. This is attributed to Schopenhauer, “the world is not a piece of machinery and animals are not articles manufactured for our use.” Are there any particular resources that helped illuminate the horrors of the animal agriculture industry for you?
LT: I mean, the way that I learned about animal agriculture in particular was predominantly through documentaries. There's kind of like a classic set of vegan ones, to the point that they're almost memes of themselves. Earthlings is usually the most commonly discussed one, which is an incredibly difficult documentary to sit through. It's just like two or three hours of some of the most brutal footage from factory farms and that kind of thing. I did watch that one, you know, before I first went vegan. Let me think what the other ones were. Cowspiracy was one… I can't remember the other titles, but those were the ones that I watched at the time, like in back in 2015 or something, that influenced me to go vegan. I actually don't know that I would necessarily recommend them to other people, because they are incredibly traumatizing and extreme.
And I think that there are other ways that you can learn about animal exploitation and the ways that animal agriculture works without necessarily having to subject yourself to footage that is that awful. I mean, some better alternatives might be reading about it. There's an ethnographer, I think his name is Timothy Pachirat, who wrote a book called Every Twelve Seconds, which is a very detailed ethnography of a huge, massive corporate slaughterhouse in Nebraska. And that one is also difficult to read, but it's, I don't know, in some ways, it's a little bit less extreme than some of the hardcore vegan documentaries. It's very educative, because it gives you a little bit of a better insight into how the how the system of production of animals actually works, rather than just disturbing footage. So that's a really good one. There's a much older one from the 80’s, and it's from France. So it's not necessarily hyper relevant to today, but it is still a really good way to think about what it is that we're doing when we are raising animals for food. That one is called Animal to Edible by Noelie Vialles. I think that one is great, that one's also an ethnography.
Even, I don't know, even popular literature, like Jonathan Safran Foer has a book or two about eating animals and how that system works. Those are designed for a popular audience, but they are, again, pretty educative. They give you a good sense of how animal agriculture works, why it works. Yeah, I think those are my initial recommendations.
JK: I see, yes. So I can imagine, a lot of the documentaries and such have made their rounds. I've even seen a metal hero, Tom G Warrior from the band Celtic Frost. He's a really outspoken animal rights activist and vegan, like he criticized James Hetfield from Metallica because he hunts, and that goes against Mr. Warrior's philosophy. Are there any celebrities who are animal rights activists who align with your research? Are there any who, like Tom G Warrior, you might not expect to be animal rights activists?
LT: That's a good question, and one that I thought about when I saw it on the list of interview questions that you sent me. And I don't know that I have a good answer, to be honest…I don't have any kind of particular vegan heroes. I'm sure my partner would probably say so - he really likes a band called Propagandhi. Similarly to the band that you raised, Jason, I think maybe they're all vegan, or mostly vegan, and have a lot of songs that are very heavily focused on animal rights and the animal agriculture industry…but, you know, I don't think I have any particular people that I really kind of look up to in that way.
JK: I was just kind of thinking that perhaps, you know, there might be some celebrities you wouldn't expect like Tom G. Warrior. He's a metal musician that sings about death and all that, and here he is such a great animal activist.
So, to get in the spirit of Jainism, there's a Jain story about a king who is visited by a pigeon, and the pigeon is being pursued by a hawk. The pigeon asked the king for help to save it from the hawk, but then the hawk also asked for help. It's a carnivore and is starving and needs to eat the pigeon in order to survive. For me, the story really gets into the heart of the dilemmas you might face. I wonder if these larger questions factor into your approach to the animal rescues that you work for? I’d just love to hear your own thoughts on this.
LT: Absolutely. There are lots of dilemmas that come up when you are caring for animals. Perhaps one of the biggest ones for me, or one of the ones that's the hardest to reconcile, is feeding animals. Like, how do you justify that? I have dogs, for instance, I've grown up with dogs. And how do you justify like being a vegan or vegetarian whilst having animals in your life that you need to feed a diet that includes meat? I know that there are certain advances in pet food—maybe particularly for dogs, less so for cats—that may be suggesting that it might be possible for some dogs to be vegan. I'm not entirely convinced of that yet, to be honest, and therefore, I do think it is a huge dilemma. Why do I say that I'm not going to eat anything that comes from an animal, and that I'm not going to kind of put my money towards any of that, and then I turn around and I give the pet shop, you know, my $60 for a bag of beef kibble or something? I don't have a great answer to this.
This is something that has bothered me for a long time. My mentor that I had in my undergrad degree, his name is Josh Milburn, he released a book a few years ago called Just Fodder, which is precisely about this. It's precisely about like, how do we feed animals, in particular animals who may be obligate carnivores, whilst at the same time trying to either reduce the number of animals are in the food system or abolish animal agriculture altogether. Like, how can you kind of reconcile these two things? And I think his answer is that it's nuanced, and it depends on the specific animal and it depends on the specific kind of situation, but it should always be aimed at being the most just situation for all involved. But that is a book I would recommend to anybody that is interested in thinking more about that. Like I said, I don't have a great answer to it other than that, though it is something I think about a lot.
It's something that bothers me a lot. I think one way that I have dealt with it is reading Donna Haraway’s When Species Meet. Her large point in that book, and I mean in some of her other work too, is that there is really no relationship that you can enter into, whether that's with other animals, other plants, etc. There's really no relationship that you can enter into where there is going to be no harm involved ever. Everything you do, all of the decisions you make; it's not possible, she says, to make like a perfectly ethical decision that harms nobody, anywhere, at any given time. Everything you do, and all the relationships you have are are always going to carry some level of harm there. There's nothing that is ethically perfect. And I think, you know, I think there are obviously boundaries to that, and that kind of thinking could easily excuse certain things that shouldn't be excused, but I think if you take it in a kind of measured way…I think that is something that has helped me to deal with, or at least feel a little bit more okay about these dilemmas in human-animal relationships.
JK: So the Jain king, would you like to know how he solved the dilemma?
LT: Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
JK: He ended up cutting off a piece of his thigh and feeding it to the hawk. So, there's still an element of harm there, because he harmed himself, right? So, Richard, you had a question.
RG: Well, now I want to ask, Lou, if you ever had to do that? No, just kidding. Well, actually, I can kind of can elaborate on that question a little bit better. But my main question was, if you would like to talk about any personal sacrifices you've had to do in order to support the animals in your work?
But I'd like to also get to what you really brought up, which was the perplexing questions in dealing with dilemmas. And to me, I appreciate that, because it sounds like you're saying there's really - we talked earlier about the different philosophies - but you're saying here that, you know, there's not a complete “one size fits all” or definitive answers. You seem to be addressing that, embodying that tension and that dynamic, so that's kind of the question. I'd like to leave it to you to also address any other challenges or tensions that we haven't covered in this yet so far.
LT: To the first point you raised, yes, I think everything is contextual. I'm very, very much rooted in the feminist ‘situated knowledges’ philosophies. I think there is so much, at least in terms of human and animal relationships, there is so much that can't be universalized. There is so much that is so specific to the particular situation, the particular animal, and the particular person involved that for most things, I don't think there is necessarily a good “one size fits all” policy or approach or something that would magically fix everything. And again, I think it's important to recognize that there is always going to be some harm somewhere. Nothing is really ethically pure. There’s no decision that you are going to make in a relationship with an animal that is ever, that is ever completely free of any harm or coercion or anything like that.
So the second question was, are there any kind of other challenges? One thing I would say that is a challenge or a dilemma is when your philosophy or your approach kind of butts up against the law, which is a lot of what is dealt with in animal shelters, in particular in municipally owned animal shelters, so much of what you do is very tightly bound by what the laws are of that state, even of the particular city, are. All cities pretty much have different ordinances when it comes to animals, such as how you should handle stray animals and whether they can be returned to their families or not. How all those kinds of things work, they are very strictly bound to specific laws. There is so much of what you do or encounter that in an ideal world, you feel like, like “this wouldn't be the outcome,” ideally. Maybe we wouldn't want to release this particular animal that is in this particular condition back to the owner that it came from. However, because the law in Texas says that animals are property, it means that for the most part – extreme situations aside – you do have an obligation to return an animal, even a stray, to the owner, if it is proven that that there is an owner.
In that regard, one huge challenge for animal welfare—and this applies both to companion animal and farmed animal work—is that you you're always going to butt up against the law at some point, and you are always going to wish that certain laws could be changed so that things worked differently.
RG: Sounds like a dilemma, yeah, and the last part of that second question was about personal sacrifices.
LT: Oh, sure. Personal sacrifices is maybe something I’ve experienced on a much smaller scale. I would say going through grad school, my partner and I have had dogs the whole time. We haven't always had a lot of money, but we’ve often sacrificed our own comforts at times to ensure that the dogs are still well fed and have all of their medical care and everything. One of our current dogs, she's called Harper. We've had her for two years, I think. But when she came to us, she had been in a shelter for three years straight. She had been in a shelter from when she was like eight weeks old until almost her third birthday. And so, she had, and kind of still has a lot of quirks; she has a lot of anxieties. It was very difficult for her to adjust to living in the human world and so she had really extreme separation anxiety. For a long time, our sacrifice was that we couldn't leave the house. Really, my partner and I couldn't go anywhere together, because somebody had to be at home with her all the time. When I think about those things, I don't necessarily think of them as a sacrifice. I just kind of think of it as, like Harper and I were working together. We spent a long time together, teaching her, and her learning how to cope with things. So, when I think about it myself, I don't necessarily think about it as a sacrifice. But I guess, to answer your question, to other people, that maybe would be kind of a sacrifice.
RG: Not necessarily your thigh, but still engaged in sacrifice. I know we’re pressed for time, so I want to hand this back to Jason.
JK: Thank you, Richard. I have one final question, getting back into that philosophy. So, there's a quote circulating online that is attributed to Nietzsche, but I don't really think Nietzsche actually said this. Regardless, it's a really good quote: “If you kill a cockroach, you are a hero. If you kill a butterfly, you are evil. Morals have aesthetic criteria.”
Do you think a change in aesthetic perception is needed so that life is not judged according to whether creatures are pretty or cute, in order to foster a more inclusive view of animal welfare? What other shifts in perception might help in this area?
LT: I think you're absolutely right. Oh, this quote is absolutely right. There is a lot of literature that does discuss this; so much funding, so much attention goes to what are known as “charismatic animals”. So that includes companion animals, you know, because we live with them and we think they're cute and that kind of thing. But it does also include so much money that goes into conservation of whales and pandas and these kinds of animals that that we think are cute and cuddly or charismatic in some way. Meanwhile, there are lots of other animals that are not necessarily super cute or fluffy or anything like that, that do also experience exploitation or need protection of some description, and don't necessarily always receive it because the money and attention is instead directed at these “charismatic animals”.
I published a piece—my first peer reviewed journal article—a couple of years ago that was a phenomenology of a cricket. In part, that came out of my own recognizing my own fear of insects and my own fear of these crickets that I was encountering when I first moved to Texas. You know, I kind of really sat down with that and interrogated it and realized I'm really only frightened of them because I don't find them charismatic in the same way that I find my dogs charismatic. But when I actually really think about it and spend time around them, I can see that they are in the world just as much as any of the rest of us are.
Yes, I definitely think there is much more attention that could be paid to insects, to all the aquatic life. Often, there's a lot of aquatic life that doesn't receive so much attention because it's not charismatic. Even wildlife, terrestrial wildlife, does not necessarily… people kind of like pick and choose the animals that they're interested in because they're cute. And I definitely think some aesthetic shift would really help to address that and make sure that when we're thinking about caring for animals, that we're not cherry-picking what that means. It would mean that if we are choosing to engage in care work with and for animals, then that means that we have to be caring for everything around us, not just selective things.
JK: Well, thank you very much for your time. Richard and I very much appreciate it. Is there any final thoughts or resources that the readers of this Jainism Studies Animal Humanities blog should check out?
LT: Um, that's a great question. I think the books that I recommended throughout this interview, honestly, the ones that I would recommend. I would recommend that if you are interested in getting into animal issues, and you don't necessarily know a whole lot about them, I would really recommend Zoopolis. I would really recommend Carol J Adams’ The Sexual Politics of Meat. I think that's a wonderful book. It's a book that ties animal exploitation to feminism and misogyny.
I would really recommend even again, just kind of popular literature for a good entry point. Jonathan Safran Foer or similar authors. For a slightly different perspective, I would recommend Donna Haraway’s When Species Meet.
Otherwise, yeah, I think that's it!
JK: All right. Thank you very much.
LT: Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Bye.