By Cecilia Hofmann
I ran into someone recently whom I hadn’t seen for years, and it turns out that she is a member of a group that rescues stray or abandoned dogs, sometimes even taking in unclaimed dogs set to be euthanized, to give them a new lease on life.
Good to know there are such wonderful individuals and groups in Dumaguete who, seeing abandoned puppies, or mangy, limping or skeletally thin dogs listlessly wandering the streets, cannot simply move past the sight but are moved to gather them up to take to a shelter or to their own or friends’ homes to be looked after.
A very busy good friend has a dozen rescue dogs and cats in her small yard (as well as a cemetery for those who didn’t make it, succumbing to illness or old age.)
Certainly, most people have issues enough in their own lives to worry about street dogs, with so many seriously short of funds or space, or if better off, with other priorities for their time and money, particularly in this age marked by the lure of consumerism.
Myself, I have to admit, am often more upset at the sight of animal distress than of human homelessness for unlike humans, dogs and cats possess no agency other than perhaps running off with a plastic bag of garbage in the hope of finding something edible in it.
Why are so many dogs in this miserable situation in this City? They are neglected or discarded after uncontrollably multiplying when owners don’t bother to have them neutered or spayed, or when properties are not fenced or otherwise secured so they do not wander off.
The all-too-common practice of keeping dogs tethered or caged is no solution at all, but is simply animal cruelty, depriving animals of the mobility and activity that are normal for the species.
What Gandhi said may be worth recalling: that the moral progress of a nation may be judged by the way it treats its animals.
But not just private individuals fail, it is again poor governance that is a basic issue, with rules that either don’t exist or are not enforced. Just another unregulated state of affairs of public life.
Only when a stray causes an accident that harms a human is there concern, but not for the animals.
A fundamental dimension of this issue has to do with how modernity has largely disconnected humans from the natural world and the living things in it.
One cause is that throughout history, the human-centeredness of most religions has predisposed most cultures to devalue non-human life. Who isn’t familiar with “…and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air, and cattle, and over the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth”?
No wonder that over time, and as economies became more complex, absolutely everything in the natural world, including on ocean floors, became “natural resources” valued for their commercial or economic potential.
An interesting dilemma is now playing out in the Nevada desert: the metal lithium is in great demand for batteries for electric vehicles but mining it risks destroying a large number of rare desert plants, including a buckwheat species that grows only in a small area there.
The contest is between the intrinsic value for biologists and conservationists of the area’s unique biodiversity, and on the other hand, climate change and economic arguments. The eventual outcome is not hard to guess.
The biodiversity crisis is at the very heart of our planetary emergency for many climate scientists. High levels of biodiversity are needed to ensure that all elements of different ecosystems work together to produce a habitable and stable earth.
And yet since the 1970s, there has been a 69 percent drop in global mammal, bird, fish, insect, reptile, and amphibian populations, not to mention plant species. All aspects of our modern way of life are leaving ever fewer possibilities for life forms to flourish, even as the mantra of “sustainable” development used to justify many activities has been utterly hollowed of meaning.
And we hardly notice, as our technologized modern lives leave us no time or attention for the natural world, except when offered up in commercial packages like “eco-tourism” or safaris, where nature sites or animals become the objects of tourist consumption and of “selfies”, that favorite pastime of a self-obsessed and superficial culture.
Even the breeding and sale of pets, along with products and accessories, some of which verge on the ridiculous, are a profitable business sector.
Fashion or snob value seem the point of prestige dog breeds, for what other business do dog breeds from polar regions have in the tropics?
But to get back to the humble rescue dog, a longer-term relationship with a rescue animal, as also with a pet, can be a real and caring interaction with the non-human, if perhaps a limited substitute for a deeper engagement with the natural world.
Particularly, children today, with lives increasingly focused on what they see on screens, may learn from forming a caring relationship with an animal, that not only humans matter.
My own four rescues are dear to me, and being alert to their non-human moods and needs and communications has surely stimulated my attention to the tiny and the larger wild creatures, the vegetation both chosen, simply co-existing or sometimes making surprise appearances, the bugs, the birds, the crawlies, all the living things simply doing their thing in our shared space.
May they long survive the onslaughts of climate disruptions to come, and continue to enrich our lives.
________________________________
Author’s email: h.cecilia7@gmail.com
