Can owning a dog be a 'selfish' pursuit? This academic thinks so

Digging into the stories of dogs in American literature led Molly Labenski to realize a disconnect in our relationship to canines. 

"I think over the last few decades we've developed a bit more of an entitlement when it comes to our relationship with dogs," said Labenski, who is finishing her PhD in English at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont. 

Her deep dive into classics like Old Yeller — the story of a devoted dog who saves his human family on numerous occasions but gets a bullet in his head after contracting rabies — reveals a pattern in literature where dogs are discarded once their usefulness to humans subsides.

She says this attitude reflects our real-world relationship to dogs and other animals, arguing that people want them in their lives as "accessories" that can easily be discarded.

Labenski points to the high demand for so-called designer dog breeds, while thousands of dogs in shelters need good homes, as a clear example of that.

These designer dogs include mixed breeds such as goldendoodles (half golden retriever and half poodle) and cockapoos (Cocker spaniel/poodle), which are favoured because they don't shed as much, or pomskies (husky/Pomeranian), which are convenient for people who want smaller dogs.

"It's at the point where we've got designer dogs customized so they can come in any colour, any pattern, any size," said Labenski. "The word 'design' is perfect — you can design a dog in a way that really reduces them to more of a commodity than it does a companion."

According to statistics from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Canadian Humane Society, in 2019 nearly 400,000 shelter dogs were euthanized across North America.  

"If we really love dogs, we would be trying to help ones that already exist rather than creating ones for our weirdly specific needs," said Labenski, who adopted an Australian shepherd shelter dog during the pandemic.  

"I think pet-keeping has become largely a selfish pursuit," she said. "We get dogs specifically for personal reasons that don't really benefit the dogs, whether it's to assuage our own loneliness or if you want to get more exercise, then getting a dog is the way to make that happen. Couples often get dogs to sort of test the waters before they have children."

Pets of all kinds have been in high demand during the pandemic. According to research by conducted by Abacus Data, about 900,000 more Canadians became new pet owners during the pandemic. (This data was collected through an online survey of 1,500 Canadian adults between June 4 and 9, 2021.)

Some animal shelters have noted an increase in pets being given up.

"It's been insane the number of surrenders we get — it's tripled in the time I've worked here," said Cassandra Ferrante, who for the past six years has been working as a dog trainer at Dog Tales, a private animal shelter and rescue near King City, north of Toronto. 

"We get at least five to 10 [surrender] applications a day. We can't even keep up with the surrender requests."