The Great Regression

It is hard not to notice the parallel trends in the dog behavior and animal welfare fields matching a lot of the bigger picture trends happening in the US and among humanity in general. That’s always been true to some extent, human behavior and societal trends and pendulum swings being what they are. But the last few years have felt more extreme and more disheartening in just how much sustained and amplified regression we have seen.

For awhile there, it really felt that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was not just right when he said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice,” but that we could see that in action. Often imperfectly so and in fits and starts but if you zoomed out, we were doing a pretty good job and there were bright spots of real, tangible progress in our lifetimes. We’ve been in a valley to varying degrees for long enough now, though ultimately not long at all on a universe timeline, that it can feel like we’re straining at the horizon trying to glimpse where that bend towards justice may again be presently visible. Some of those bright spots have become places we’re actively losing ground.

And it’s not just justice. Compassion, Empathy. Truth. Shoot, competence for that matter. Much of how we make decisions and choose what paths to travel seem to be missing a lot of the guiding values that keep us moving, however imperfectly, along the arc as Dr. King described.

What’s frustrating is the general goals we should be striving for feel so obvious. We want to live joyful lives with our dogs. We don’t want to hurt or scare them. We want to save animals in shelters while also providing a humane quality of life and protecting public safety. We want clean air and water and land and a livable climate and safe food and access to healthcare and an educated population. It’s not that those are easy goals. It’s that the goals themselves as what we embrace and then choose to work towards together shouldn’t be controversial. And while there is plenty of room for different ideas on how to achieve them, the ideas that actively dismantle those goals shouldn’t be on the table.

But we’re susceptible to poor information, disinformation, false narratives, and outright propaganda. We live in a world where online spaces and algorithms have led to the rise of polarization, hate, othering, and information bubbles. And if the reality on the ground feels hard in some way, it is too easy for too many humans to reach for solutions that include punishment and blame and even hatred and villification - of a dog, of a person, of an out group of dogs or of humans.

We want to save the “good dogs” and are righteous to kill the “bad dogs.” But there is no such thing as a bad dog and all dogs, even the small number we cannot safely place or keep in homes, deserve to be treated with compassion and competence. We’re stuck in the mindset that our dog needs to be punished for what we feel is “bad” behavior and end up diminishing warning behaviors and often making the behavior worse and damaging our relationship with our dog in the process. We worry that something good for someone else means something lost for us rather than seeing the value and imperative of the common good.

We are making our own lives and the lives of dogs harder and worse than they need to be for no good reason at all. It is difficult to navigate the sea of misinformation when it’s all around us. People in positions of power, authority, and visibility spin narratives that make us feel a certain way and apply pressure to fall in line with a certain belief. Depending on stressors in our lives, accepting a given narrative can even feel like relief. Things like displacing blame and being told there is an easy solution for an issue troubling you can feel good in the moment. But what do we find on closer examination and a longer timeline?

In this precarious moment, where animal welfare systems are faltering alongside our country, we ask you to revisit the values and touchstones guiding your decision making.

Start with, is this the truth? What verifiable facts can you find? What does expert consensus in the relevant field say? Not the loud self proclaimed expert on social media or a podcast or whatever format people monetize self-righteousness on these days. What does a consensus of qualified experts and data in the relevant field tell you? For many fields, there are existing areas of investigation and always will be but there are also often decades of information that make certain conclusions no longer up for debate.

Then ask what compassion and empathy tell you. Whether it’s an individual dog, an individual human, or a particular group of dogs or humans. There are absolutely moments where humans may deserve our anger and to be held accountable for their actions (though accountability seems to be one of those lost values as well). But dogs do not exist in the same type of moral universe. They are doing the best they can to navigate the confusing human world we set for them. Just like us, they do not always navigate that world perfectly. They need our compassion and empathy and guidance, not our blame. And for dogs and humans both, there is no justice in othering. It has a long tradition of preceding and enabling atrocity systems and humanity is rife with it in this current moment. It is a presently and historically dangerous practice and if you catch yourself engaging in it, please do your best to step back and adjust.

What about your personal experience? Forget what the angry voice on the internet said about an issue or how some meme made you feel like your worst impulses were right. What direct experience do you have with that issue? Do you know someone in the targeted group or who has engaged in the targeted behavior? Is your experience common or an outlier? Do you have the courage to interrogate those experiences honestly?

And finally, is there a better way? A better way to think about or act on the question or issue at hand. A way that may bring us more in line with truth, compassion, empathy, and competence. A way that is more likely to foster joy. To create a world more like the one we want to live in. To bring the truth of Dr. King’s quote back into view so we can once again see the arc bending towards justice here in our lifetimes and in the moments of our daily lives shared with dogs and with each other.