Image by teeveesee from Pixabay

In my book, Citizen Canine, I detail how cats and dogs rose from wild animals to the most valued creatures on earth. Some new stats are backing up that lofty status, thanks to an informative article in The Economist. Here are some of the biggest takeaways:

•  The richer a country, the more people have pets. According to Carlos Romano, the head of Nestlé’s pet-food operations in Latin America, pet keeping begins when household incomes exceed about $5,000 a year. “Dog-food sales in Mexico have grown by 25% in real terms since 2013,” according to the story. Part and parcel with this: Wealthy people are more likely to describe pets as “beloved members of the family”.
• 95% of American pet owners consider their animals part of the family—up from 88% in 2007, according to a 2015 a Harris poll. What’s more, more than two-thirds of Americans allow pets to sleep on their beds, “and almost half have bought them birthday presents”.
• In many Asian countries, pets are transforming from food to friends. “In 2017 the Korean president, Moon Jae-in, acquired a dog from a shelter,” according to the article. “Earlier this year the mayor of Seoul vowed to close all dog butchers. Chinese animal-lovers hound the dog-meat festival held each year in the province of Guangxi.”
• And when we say “pets”, we increasingly mean just cats and dogs. “Sales of dog and cat food are rising in Britain. Rabbit, rodent, fish and bird food are all in decline,” according to The Economist. ”Euromonitor expects the number of pet cats worldwide to grow by 22% between 2018 and 2024, compared with 18% for dogs. Cats are better suited to apartment living than dogs, so they are more at home in the densely populated, fast-growing cities of Asia.”

It’s a pet’s life indeed!

Hurricane Katrina was one of the most devastating natural disasters to strike the United States. But it was also a transformative moment in our relationship with cats and dogs. For the first time, society as a whole recognized how important these animals were to us–and that we would do anything to save them. Now those lessons are being applied in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.

I’ve written extensively about pet rescue efforts during Katrina. Approximately 250,000 animals were left behind–in some cases, because people thought they would be able to quickly return to their homes, in others because rescuers and human shelters wouldn’t take cats and dogs, so families were forced to abandon them. But not everyone left their animals–almost half of the people who stayed behind during the storm and its aftermath stayed because of their pets. And many of them died.

In 2006, the federal government passed the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards (PETS) Act, which impels rescue agencies to save pets as well as people. Since then, more than 30 states have adopted their own versions of the act, which have been implemented in everything from tornadoes to wildfires. This includes Texas, which requires state officials to help draft plans “for the humane evacuation, transport and temporary sheltering of service animals and household pets in a disaster.”

And now Harvey has seen that plan put into action.

In one case, as the Washington Post reports, flood evacuees with pets were allowed into the George R. Brown Convention Center (after initially being denied entry), after an official stated that both humans and animals were welcome at the city’s evacuation centers. “We all saw what followed Hurricane Katrina, where people weren’t allowed to keep their pets with them,’” Harris County Judge Ed Emmett told reporters. “We obviously don’t want that to happen.” In another case, firefighters rescuing people by boat later returned to get their dogs. And if pets must be separated from their owners, human shelters like one in San Antonio are making sure pets and their owners are given matching ID numbers so that they can be reunited later–a huge problem in the weeks and months following Katrina.

Animal rescuers are also more organized. During Katrina, the animal rescue effort was chaotic, with a variety of groups–and hundreds of well-meaning individuals–flooding New Orleans and surrounding areas in an effort to rescue the thousands of animals left behind. But a lack of shelter space and limited coordination hampered rescue efforts and resulted in numerous animals being lost in the system. In Texas, animal groups planned ahead, transferring animals out of shelters in the storm zone so that the facilities would be ready for storm survivors. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Humane Society of the United States have also beefed up their disaster response divisions after Katrina, the Post reports. “The latter now has memorandums of understanding with many local organizations and localities — including the Houston suburbs of League City and Dickinson — that allow for more nimble and organized responses.”

When I reported on the Katrina pet rescue efforts for my book, Citizen Canine, one of the most remarkable people I met was Charlotte Bass Lilly, who rescued hundreds of pets during the storm and became a champion for the city’s animals in its aftermath. Bass Lilly passed away in 2015, but I have always remembered something she told me when I was in New Orleans. “I don’t think the world realized what pets mean to people before Katrina,” she said. “Now they know there’s a human–animal bond that can’t be broken.”

Harvey shows that this lesson is still being taken to heart.

For the first time, the FBI will track animal cruelty the same way it tracks other crimes like homicides. The move is the latest example of the evolving status of animals—especially cats and dogs—in our society. But what prompted the FBI’s decision, and how does it change law enforcement’s approach to animal abuse? Here’s everything you need to know:

What was the FBI’s previous approach to animal cruelty?

Animal cruelty is a felony in all 50 states. (South Dakota, the last holdout, strengthened its laws in 2014.) Penalties can be up to $125,000 in fines and 10 years in prison. Yet until now, the FBI didn’t keep specific tabs on these crimes, lumping them into a catch-all category of “other”. Because of this, the agency didn’t have good stats on how dogfighting, for example, varied from state to state, or how often animal cruelty was associated with other crimes like gun violence or domestic abuse. The FBI also couldn’t track the overall question of whether animal abuse was on the rise or decline in the U.S., according to The Washington Post.

What meets the FBI’s definition of “animal cruelty”?

The FBI, according to the Post, defines cruelty to animals as: “Intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly taking an action that mistreats or kills any animal without just cause, such as torturing, tormenting, mutilation, maiming, poisoning, or abandonment.” The agency has created four categories of animal abuse: Neglect (which could include starvation, leaving an animal chained up or in the cold, or perhaps even not providing necessary medical care), intentional abuse and torture, organized abuse (ex. dog fighting), and bestiality.

Why did the agency make this move?

In many ways, the FBI’s decision has been more than a century in the making. In 1866, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) became America’s first animal protection organization. The ASPCA put the nation’s first effective animal welfare law on the books, making animal cruelty a misdemeanor in New York and dragging animal abusers (people who whipped their horses bloody or packed calves too tightly in butcher’s carts) to court for the first time. In the mid-1980s, the Humane Society of the United States began pushing for felony laws against animal cruelty, citing a growing body of scientific literature that pointed to a strong link between animal abuse and human abuse. Most serial killers got their start by torturing animals, for example, and people who abuse animals are five times more likely to commit violent crimes against people. That’s why both the National Sheriffs’ Association and the Animal Welfare Institute pressured the FBI to make its change.

And, of course, there is the fact that the public has become more sensitive to animal issues over the past couple of decades. Voters have passed tougher factory farming legislation across the country, SeaWorld attendance is declining because of the Blackfish scandal, and—most importantly, as I cover in Citizen Canine—we’ve embraced cats and dogs as family members both in our homes and in the eyes of the law. Quite simply, the public expects the FBI to take animal cruelty seriously.

What does the change mean in practice?

The FBI will now recognize animal abuse as its own category of crime—and as a Group A offense, which also includes arson, assault, and homicide. The data should allow the agency to better track, prevent, and punish animal abuse. And because animal abusers often commit other crimes, from domestic violence to murder, the FBI should have an easier time tracking and prosecuting a variety of violent criminals.

“Picture a state with a lot of red dots which represent animal cruelty,” Mary Lou Randour, senior advisor for animal cruelty programs at the Animal Welfare Institute, told The Christian Science Monitor.  “There are also lots of other dots representing other forms of violence. When they are co-occurring, the area is even more dangerous and you can focus your resources on those places.”

Cats in Madagascar (Credit: Hery Zo Rakotondramanana / flickr)

You take a fat cat, and cut its throat, and after it is dead, behead it and throw the head away, because it is not something to be eaten because it is said that those who eat the brains will lose their minds and lack judgment.

So begins a recipe in Llibre de Coch, a 15^th-century Spanish cookbook and one of the oldest in Europe. Today, most people in the western world would turn away in disgust if they saw cat on the menu, regardless of whether or not they were a fan of the world’s most popular pet. But people do eat cats—millions of felines a year, in fact, and four million in Asia alone, according to a study published this month in Anthrozoös.

Why do they do it? Cats (and dogs) have long been on the menu in China—it’s considered a delicacy by some—though the government has begun to crack down on the practice as both animals have become more popular pets there. But it many places it’s not clear why people eat cats, or even how they obtain them.

To get some answers, the authors of the Anthrozoös study turned to the island nation of Madagascar, home to a rapidly growing—and impoverished—human population. The researchers speculated that given the high rates of malnutrition and the large number of pet and feral cats found across the country, that the Malagasy would turn to felines for food.

But after the researchers interviewed hundreds of people, the responses surprised them. Only a third of the interviewees had consumed cat meat in their entire lifetimes, and those with less regular access to food were no more likely to eat cat. When people did eat cat meat, they rarely bought it. Instead, they ate cats that had been hit by cars or that they had killed to protect their chickens. “Cat consumption is unlikely to provide a sufficient, sustainable means of tackling hunger, given the large scale of food insecurity issues in Madagascar,” the team concludes in its paper.

Whether these results apply to other parts of the globe is unclear. But one thing does seem certain: as cats gain in popularity as pets, the taboos against eating them will only become stronger. Felines may have been on the menu in medieval Spain, but today they’re more likely to be on your lap than on your dinner plate.

(Credit: Gail Williams / Wikimedia Commons)

Very excited to see my Buzzfeed story on pet rescue during Hurricane Katrina included on this list of “17 Of The Best Things Ever Written About Hurricane Katrina”. Thank you, to all of you who have read, shared, and commented on this story! Check out some of the other fantastic stories on this list as well.

(Credit: Best Friends Animal Society)

Nearly half the people who stayed behind during Hurricane Katrina stayed because of their pets. Helicopters and boats would come, but the rescuers largely refused to take cats and dogs. So many owners, unwilling to abandon a family member, refused to go — and many of them died. Others did leave their pets, convinced they would be able to retrieve them in a few days. But officials kept them out for weeks, leaving the animals to fend for themselves. Dogs waited on rooftops, cats clung to debris in toxic waters, and pets starved to death in barricaded homes.

Even for a nation grappling with the human tragedy of Katrina, the plight of dogs and cats struck a nerve. The public flooded Congress with letters, and in 2006 the legislature — despite being bitterly divided over war, immigration, and seemingly every other issue — passed the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards (PETS) Act with near unanimous support. That law, which impels rescue agencies to save pets as well as people during natural disasters, and the public outcry that inspired it, marked a turning point in our relationship with cats and dogs. No longer would we see them as pets or even companion animals. They had become members of society.

For the full story of the largest animal rescue in U.S. history, and how the storm forever changed our relationship with cats and dogs–both in our homes and in the eyes of the law–check out my new article in BuzzFeed: How Hurricane Katrina Turned Pets into People

On Friday, I moderated a live video chat for Science with two experts on opposite sides of this very contentious issue. One, Steven Wise, is the president of the NonHuman Rights Project and a vocal proponent of animal rights. The other, Richard Cupp, is a law professor at Pepperdine University in California and an influential voice in the anti-personhood movement. Both care about animals, but they have very different ideas of the best way to improve their welfare. Our chat was wide ranging–covering everything from what rights for animals would look like to whether Neanderthals, computers, and space aliens should be granted human rights. It was a fascinating and passionate discussion. I hope you’ll check it out!

What exactly is pet personhood, and how could it impact the relationship between you and your cat or dog? I cover this topic in my new book, CITIZEN CANINE: Our Evolving Relationship with Cats and Dogs, to be published this spring by PublicAffairs. In the meantime, here’s everything you need to know:

What is the current legal status of pets?

We may view our cats and dogs as friends, family, and even virtual children, but that’s not how the law sees them. Ever since the early 1900s, American pets have had the legal status of property. That means that, in the eyes of the law, they are technically no different than a couch or a toaster. This status itself is an upgrade. Prior to the twentieth century, cats and dogs were considered valueless objects that didn’t even warrant the meager legal designation of property. They could be stolen and killed without repercussion.

So my dog is a toaster?

Well, not exactly. Even though pets are legally property, lawmakers have begun to recognize that they are not the same as inanimate objects. Take anti-cruelty legislation. Nearly every U.S. state has felony abuse laws on its books, imposing fines of up to $125,000 and 10 years in prison for anyone who harms a dog or cat. (No one’s going to throw you in jail for harming your couch.) On the federal level, Congress passed the PETS Act in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which impels rescue agencies to rescue pets as well as people during natural disasters. And in the courtroom, judges have begun awarding damages for mental suffering and loss of companionship to the owners of slain pets—legal claims typically reserved for the death of a spouse or child. Courts have also considered the “best interests” of dogs and cats in custody cases, treating them like the children of divorcing parents. All of these developments, some legal scholars have argued, have granted cats and dogs rights (the right to be free from abuse, the right to have their interests considered in a custody battle) not available to any other type of property.

Does that mean my cat is becoming a legal person?

It depends who you ask. Personhood doesn’t come easy. American blacks were considered property for centuries; it took the Civil War for them to attain legal personhood. Even most advocates for animal personhood don’t think that pets are anywhere close to this sort of paradigm shift. But some say dogs and cats may be inching towards personhood—that a felony abuse law here and custody case there may eventually lead a lawmaker to declare that pets are no longer property. Even then, it could take decades for our companion animals to be embraced as persons by the entire legal system.

What’s all this business about pets becoming slaves?

Personhood is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it would grant pets unprecedented protections in the legal system. They would have the right to adequate medical care, the right to be removed from an abusive home, and the right to be kept out of puppy mills. But these rights would also impose new duties on owners, who would no longer be owners, but guardians. If pets are people, guardians could be treated like the parents of human children, being fined or having their animals taken away by a sort-of Pet Protective Services if they don’t walk their dog enough or spring for their cat’s chemotherapy. What’s more, dogs and cats with rights could sue people. A cat could sue his owners for the emotional distress of not being let outside; a dog could sue her veterinarian for medical malpractice. Pets could also be sued. (Think about that the next time your dog poops on someone’s lawn.) And finally, pets that are people can’t be neutered against their will; they also can’t be bought or sold—that would make them slaves.

Is there a happy medium?

Some legal scholars have argued that lawmakers should create a new legal status for pets, one that would acknowledge that they aren’t the same as toasters, but not quite people either. One of the most prominent advocates for this approach is Michigan State University College of Law professor David Favre, who has proposed a new legal status called “living property”. The designation would technically keep animals in the property status, but it would allow them to accumulate a number of rights typically afforded to people, such as the right to be free from abuse and the right to be adopted rather than bought or sold. In essence, pets would be treated much like human children.

What do you think?

Should cats and dogs remain property? Should they be granted legal personhood? How do you view your relationship with your own pet? Let me know in the comments section!