This is “Be kind to animals” week. I’m all in favor of kindness to animals, but it does have a downside. The word gets around. I must be on every animal-related mailing list on the planet. The mailbox is stuffed with appeals from animal charities: The Humane Society, The ASPCA, Alley Cat Allies, Friends of Animals, World Wildlife, Save the Puppies, Farmyard Animal Rescue, Save the Whales, and dozens more. They send heartrending pictures, mugs, T-shirts, umbrellas and all kinds of junk. What they want in return is not a pat on the head and a kind word, but money. The animals would be embarrassed to ask. Their human representatives are not.
But kindness to animals is an important measure of civilization. The sheer number of animal charities tells us that a lot of people out there really do care. So I’m almost glad, in a masochistic way, to get all these appeals and to be forced to choose between them. Even Elon Musk couldn’t afford to support them all.
We can be kind to animals without breaking the bank simply by recognizing them as fellow creatures, live and let live, and talking to them. Everybody talks to their own pets, and it has a strong psychological effect. The animal “it” becomes a fellow creature with feelings, and we feel quite differently about our relationship.
I talk to creatures of any kind. It may seem eccentric to you, and probably to them, but I don’t care. The chipmunks and deer who cross my path always get a polite word, and they appreciate it, I’m sure. The more intelligent animals are, the better they understand human communication. Chipmunks, for example, are rather skittish, unrewarding company; cats are always argumentative, and dogs seem to agree with every word you say. But you can have a very good conversation with a pig. Winston Churchill had a special fondness for pigs. “Dogs look up to us,” he said, “cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals.”
Much as I enjoy chatting to pigs when I get the opportunity, I can scarcely avoid the huge contradiction. What sense does it make to be kind to animals in small ways when we treat them abominably in big ways? Talking to pigs and being nice to lost puppies and fluffy kittens is obviously not enough and never will be enough until we all turn vegetarian or vegan, in which I, along with most of the human race, have disgracefully failed. Live and let live is precisely what we don’t do.
Be Kind to Animals Week was started by the Humane Society in 1915, when kindness was in short supply because of the Great War. We’ve made some progress in the humane treatment of animals in a hundred years, but very little progress in the humane treatment of people. It’s easy to forget that alongside the hundreds of thousands of humans who are dying in our wars of greed and vanity, enormous numbers of wild and domestic animals are being destroyed too, but they don’t appear in the casualty statistics.
Perhaps kindness, like charity, should begin at home. A “Be Kind to People Week” would be a good start. Kindness to animals might follow as day follows night, once we have decided to be less cruel to ourselves.
