We have witnessed the fuss over the culling of the non-native hedgehog in the Western Isles. We have seen animal rights activists equating factory-farmed chickens with Holocaust victims, and now we learn that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is again attempting to obliterate the “Royal” from its name. Council member Angela Walder said three years ago that the Queen’s pro-hunting stance makes her historic association with the RSPCA “like the NSPCC having a paedophile as its patron”. Tally ho indeed!
How our continental neighbours, particularly those who shoot, then eat or stuff everything that moves, must laugh. And I would laugh too, except that all these things are indicative of a creeping malaise and confusion about animals that is really quite troubling.
That the British, despite dumping thousands of unwanted pets on the streets each year, do love animals, is borne out by some figures from Argos Insurance that had my jaw dropping. Quite apart from the 100% audience weep figures for Disney’s Bambi, 60% to 70% of British pet owners spend more than £20 each year on Christmas and birthday presents for their furry or scaley friends, with those in the north, which includes Scotland, spending more than their southern counterparts. On Christmas Day itself, 4m people cook their pet a special meal and by New Year’s Day, in Britain alone, £100m will have been spent on feeding, clothing, grooming and spoiling.
If money really does equal love, then British pets are extremely fortunate. Of course the money could be better spent on starving children or cancer research and it may be a little eccentric to spend more on your pet than on your elderly parent, which, when vets’ fees are taken into account, many people are surprised to discover that they do. But that’s the British way.
My daughter has a friend in Glasgow whose mother is spending thousands on giving a sick hamster a new stomach. The hamster is diabetic. I’d have knocked the thing on the head myself — well, not literally myself, although the price of a lethal jab administered by the vet makes the proposition quite tempting for the non-squeamish. Whatever the method, the hamster would be a gonner. In my opinion, that would have been kind but the other mother — “luckily for the hamster ”, said my younger daughter darkly — disagreed. That is her choice.
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However, hamster stomach transplants are not what I mean by mad. By mad I mean the modern, deliberately induced confusion as to what animals really are. Take the website of Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), designed for children, and contemplate the following: “Chickens . . . value their lives just as much as you value yours.” Excuse me? Chickens value nothing, because their brains do not function in that way. The story about chickens goes on, equating their intelligence and emotions with ours, including the priceless assertion that a chicken’s “mom” teaches it all about life. Not quite so funny is the crunch moment, when children are asked to imagine what they would feel like if taken away and slaughtered, because their feelings directly mirror those of the chicks about to be turned into nuggets.
Ah, you may think, but that’s just Peta, and they are extreme. If only this were so. It’s fair enough, perhaps, for pet shops to ask questions to see whether you are a fit owner, although some people might balk a bit at being asked to fill in details about their working hours on an application form, which is what you have to do if you buy a pet from Harrods. Pretending that I wanted to buy a kitten there last year, I was left feeling as if I was trying to adopt a baby.
In Scottish pet shops things are slightly more measured, with potential pet owners given books and advice. However vets, including brisk Scottish ones, are now in the habit of routinely talking about animals in the same tones as doctors talk about patients, and recommend that dogs are sent to special doggy shrinks or to swim in specially constructed pools. There is such a pool in Clydebank which charges £15 for a 20-minute doggy swimming session. Start saving now.
Last year The Blue Cross, a reputable, long-established animal welfare charity declared, with no hint of irony: “It is wonderful to see that we are such a nation of animal lovers. But we would like people to spare a thought for the hundreds of unwanted animals in our care that face Christmas alone.” For goodness sake! “Facing Christmas alone” is something pensioners do, not dogs. Even among perfectly sensible people, it seems that anthropomorphism has reached lunatic proportions.
And now it has taken over the RSPCA. The projected disposal of the Queen as their patron is nothing more than another stage in a process which, they hope, will, in the minds of ordinary people, turn animals into human beings complete with all human attributes. Despite needing money for their centres — one in Rochdale is currently trying to raise £50,000 for the dogs and cats the RSPCA should be looking after — they are determined to pursue an animal rights rather than an animal protection agenda until we have all lost the capacity to discriminate between a goldfish and baby, with the fate of one equally as important as the fate of the other. We may all know this is mad but it does not mean it will not happen. After all, if so many of us already buy our pets birthday presents and Christmas stockings, we are already madder than either we or our pets might like to think.