The Usual Shop

Posted by Steve on May 6th, 2009 in Uncategorized

Tomorrow morning i’m going to get up at the ungodly hour of < 6 (for the life of me, i can’t remember what they call the time that comes before 6:00 am) to take Pi to be neutered. A lot has been said - often jokingly - about the metaphysical identity consequences of neutering an animal. I think that’s mostly because people immediately connect a dog or cat being neutered to them (or their nearest male counterpart) being neutered, with the sub-understanding that there’s a loss of identity involved.

However, i’m not so concerned. I’ve found a relatively comfortable balance on my view of animal rights - hinging much on the fact that i don’t equate animals as almost-humans. I have a very domesticated dog as a very domesticated dog. He provides me and my wife with entertainment and companionship and so forth and we provide him with shelter and food and hopefully some of the same things he provides us. He’s very much a part of our family in how (and how much) we care for him, but we make no excuses for his place as our pet.

Likewise, i have no problems eating meat and animal products. I understand and respect vegetarianism and vegan diets, but would only consider one myself for health (or education, or environmental*) reasons.

This stance on animal-human relations has led me to the comfortable (and i think relevant and accurate) opinion that i don’t need to feel bad for having my dog castrated, while at the same time i think it’s important that he doesn’t go around impregnating every female dog in town. Yes, he’s that charming.

I do, however, take some issue with the title. I’m okay with “castration” and “sterilization” but the idea that my dog is now gender-neutral, i feel is misleading. In this case, i side a little more with the “animals as living beings” argument of animal rights. I definitely don’t believe that physiology has a necessary and ultimate tie to human gender identity. And with Pi, i feel it’s the same. I will still refer to my dog as a “he” and will check “male” on his passport application without hesitation.

And i definitely argue that he’s not getting “fixed”.

But i don’t kid myself that his behavior might change. It will be interesting to see exactly what happens. If nothing else, hopefully he can start leaving his “special” blanket alone while we’re watching movies.

*During my senior year of high school i spent one week as a vegetarian because i was curious to see what would happen. What ended up happening was that it was inconvenient and upsetting to people to a much greater degree than that of my curiosity conviction. Also, i went almost ten years without eating beef because when i was around nine i was outraged to learn of Rainforest deforestation for cattle purposes.