God, dogs and capitalism

Companions, guides, watchdogs and friends; No matter how you slice it, pets play a huge role in the lives of Canadians. The latest survey by Statistics Canada shows this, too, estimating that 35 percent of Canadian households have a dog and 38 percent have a cat.

With pet ownership, though, comes great responsibility. Across Canada, new bylaws are being proposed and passed that require all cats be registered for a licence as a way to reduce strays in animal shelters. Recommended prices for pet licences range from $15 for spayed or neutered cats to $64 for non-spayed or -neutered dogs. The fine for not licensing your pets sits at an average of $250.

When asked why we must license our pets, organizations such as http://Petplace.com respond by reminding pet owners that owning a pet is a privilege, much like owning a car. Since cars can be both useful and dangerous, governments must regulate how and who can use them.

This licensing debate points to the disturbing fact that, in the West, our legal system recognizes two forms of life: people and things. Animals are considered things in this system, and, more specifically, our things, our property.

If we are to be good stewards of God’s earth and see the value of creation in itself, this way of thinking points us in the wrong direction. As such, it is an important task as stewards to recognize the problems that come with thinking about animals as though they are cars.

In her book More with Less, Doris Janzen Longacre challenges readers to nonconform freely, emphasizing how, like Jesus, we, too, must work against the oppressive forces in our society. As Anabaptists, how we think about pets is theologically relevant when working towards an ethic of nonconforming freely in an oppressive capitalist system.

Reimagining dominion

Recounting their recent move from New Brunswick to Manitoba on their blog, Terry and Monique Mierau write how neighbours repeatedly asked why they brought their animals with them. Noting that no one ever questioned why they brought their couch, Terry and Monique describe how their animals are not simply possessions, but their own creatures with their own personalities and particularities.

“Simply buying an animals doesn’t make them ours,” they write. “They only belong to us when we, to some or the same degree, belong to them.”

Changing how we think about pets and other animals starts with changing how we think about our role as stewards of God’s earth. If we think of our “dominion over the earth” as a kind of capitalist ownership or possession, we miss the point that nonhuman creatures are a gift that requires both care and reciprocity.

A better comparison than a car might be to compare pets to children. While we are certainly responsible for them and must care for them, they are not for us to use. Equally, this relationship is not a one-way exchange, or one that we can own.

Scripture clearly states that because God created everything, God is the owner of all: “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world and all those who live in it” (Psalms 24:1).

To deny this is to deny animals are our fellow creatures, children of our divine and holy creator. It is also to deny that we ourselves are animals, called to care for God’s creation.

Yes, licensing pets may be an effective way to address strays in shelter, but the story cannot stop there. Reimagining pets as fellow creatures, instead of property, is an important step towards recognizing the oppressive forces in our capitalist society and an essential step towards working against them.

Laura Tait is a fourth-year international development and communications student at Canadian Mennonite University.