Giving animals emotions makes me feel beastly

Comment Fordyce Maxwell

You can’t go wrong with a story that attributes human feelings to animals, real or fictional. Think Wind In The Willows and Black Beauty or even Black Bob the collie of years ago in the Dandy.

Or any story that attributes bravery and loyalty to animals, such as the recent award of the Dickin Medal to a British Army dog for apparent bravery under fire, or Greyfriars Bobby allegedly sitting by a grave for years.

Given the above examples, when a recent book claims that eight out of ten owners give their pets equal status to humans and even David Attenborough veered towards anthropomorphism in the recent Blue Planet II television series, it is no surprise that a book about cows with human feelings is selling well.

The headline on one review of The Secret Life Of Cows by Rosamund Young summed up its selling point: “They feel grief, compassion and jealousy – just like us.”

I probably shouldn’t have shouted “No, they don’t” as loudly as I did, but couldn’t help it. Nor have they any of the other human attributes the author contends they have. They’re cows that eat, ruminate, mate and defecate without thinking much about it. They may be contented, but they don’t have the capacity to lead full and varied lives as most humans try to do.

Animals should be, and usually are, treated with respect by their owners. The good commercial reason is that healthy, clean animals are more profitable. The good human reason is that most livestock farmers have a liking, even

0 Greyfriars Bobby allegedly sat by a grave for years affection, for their animals. These animals do have individual characteristics. Some ewes reject their own lambs. Some cows kick. Bulls, thought of as docile, can suddenly attack. Some dogs are savage, regardless of their owners shouting above the barking “He only wants to play”. Some sows eat their young given half a chance. Seagulls push the weakest of a brood out of the nest.

That is a deliberately antianthropomorphic view to try to counter Ms Young’s contentions, such as that a cow showed “almost human” grief when a calf wasborndead.no,itdidn’t, that’s a loving herdswoman looking at a cow with a dead calf and imagining how she would feel if it was a baby.

That’s what anthropomorphism is, a human projecting their feelings on to an animal and making that behaviour fit preconceived notions. That’s why some try to make heroes of animals doing what they have been trained to do or believe that cows can be vain, inventive, philosophical or polite, or alert the farmer to illness in another animal by roaring at night.

What we do know, factually and obviously, is that animals have physical feelings. That was officially recognised by acceptance of the Brambell Report of half a century ago that stipulated five freedoms for farm animals: freedom from hunger and thirst; from discomfort; from pain, injury and disease; from fear or distress; and freedom to express most forms of normal behaviour.

Almost all of those rules would come under the heading of good husbandry and I believe that most farmers abide by them and wouldn’t think of keeping animals any other way.

Unfortunately, there are enough exceptions, usually involving mentally deficient or alcoholic infliction of cruelty, or intensive rearing and finishing systems for pigs and poultry, to give animal welfare organisations legitimate reasons to complain and campaign and extend their argument to all farmed animals.

It’s one of those arguments where the two sides don’t have a common language. If you genuinely believe that animals have exactly the same feelings and thoughts as humans there is no common ground with those of us who believe that pets should be controlled, not in charge, and that farm animals are to be cared for with respect, not to try and start a conversation with.

A pen of young pigs rooting and running about on clean straw always made me smile and I remember some bucket-reared calves that were “characters”. Even the occasional sheep was different. But any projection of human characteristics on to them would have been entirely in my imagination.