Category: Animal ethics

Fads and crazes: pocket pets and teacup dogs – we never learn.

Fads and crazes have being going on for decades beginning with the hamster in the 1930’s and now pocket pets and teacup dogs.

Whenever the pet trade and animal breeders feel that the market is becoming stale, they are very good at producing and introducing new fads and crazes to keep the gullible and fickle pet acquiring public in the mood for acquiring pets. This has being going on for decades beginning with the hamster in the 1930’s and now pocket pets and teacup dogs. The pet trade are very good at manipulating us by coming up with new species of animals to promote and sell by using social media and clever marketing to make the poor creature a must have.

Fads or crazes for a type of pet come along at regular intervals and many begin in the USA and are often driven by so-called celebrities who if photographed with a certain breed of dog immediately incite a rush to acquire the same.

We are also bizarrely influenced to buy certain animals by movies, particularly animated ones, when children badger their parents who disgracefully submit to their requests. We never seem to learn as back in 1980’s I remember the ninja turtle movies spawned a disastrous craze for baby turtles. The pet trade jumped all over this fad with a lot of help from the media, which resulted in coerced parents buying these tiny creatures to placate their youngsters , with no regard or common sense to their long-term needs and the problems that would occur.

I was working as an animal health inspector at the Animal Quarantine Station at London Heathrow airport at the time and saw these beautiful tiny creatures bred and shipped in their thousands arriving from the USA in aircraft holds. 200 writhing turtles were piled into each small cardboard box, and flown worldwide to meet the demand. Many died or were squashed en-route, thousands died after being bought and thousands abandoned into waterways to take their chances when they grew too big causing environmental and health issues.

In the late nineties we had a craze for chipmunks or small side-striped squirrels driven by the Alvin animated films and in 2010 a television advertising campaign incredibly led people to buy meerkats as pets.

In 2016, the US pet trade was boosted by two animated films ‘Finding Dory’ and the ‘Secret Life of Pets’ which ‘attracted the interest, attention and investment in both new and existing pets’ according to Euromonitor.com pet care industry reports. These films also show the draw of animals to both children and adults as they grossed nearly US$2 billion between them. The fact that we are easily enticed into acquiring live animals on a whim is frightening.

Pocket Pets

Pet rat, pocket pet, rat
Pocket pets is just one of the continual fads and crazes we insist on falling for regardless of the consequences to the poor animals.

Recently we have seen a fad for so-called ‘pocket pets’, their popularity spread by social media all around the world with the obvious consequences. Originally the idea was to market small pets like mice, rats and hamsters as ideal pets for carrying around in your pocket. Apart from anything else, this is an extremely unhygienic idea and of course cruel. It is not really a new fad, but a re-invention as many schoolkids have carried pet mice in their pockets for decades particularly to frighten their teacher.

The market for keeping once popular small mammals was declining and viewed by many as ‘boring’ so something was required to make them more appealing. This was achieved by re-inventing them as ‘pocket pets’.

At first the term pocket pets was restricted to small mammals such as mice, rats and hamsters, but unfortunately the term was soon hijacked and re-branded as any pet ‘the size of a pocket’. This has led to totally unsuitable pets being marketed with small exotic species like skunks, chinchillas, degus, prairie dogs, sugar gliders and flying squirrels and even tortoises and birds, obviously too big for most pockets.

Rabbits were also re-branded when their appeal declined due to fewer people having gardens and so they became ideal ‘house pets‘ and a craze for huge breeds of rabbit was born.

This has in turn created unsuitable and poor standards of care resulting in premature deaths, suffering and more discarded animals. As far as the pet trade is concerned, any animal species can be made into a suitable pet and so skunks have their scent glands removed to make them acceptable.

Designer Dogs

In the UK, whichever breed won the national dog show at Crufts became the must have dog, then we had a craze for macho breeds such as the German Shepherd back in the sixties when everyone was into guard dogs, then Dobermanns and Rottweilers and recently Pit Bulls and Staffordshire Bull Terriers that have become the blight of many parts of the world. But times change and with the help yet again of social media we have progressed to the recent fad for designer cross breeds with nonsense names and even more recently the French Bulldog has come to prominence with 10.5 million photographs of it on Instagram following its celebrity status with people like Lady Gaga.

Handbag and teacup dogs

Then we had a celebrity led craze for “handbag” dogs which were just traditional toy breeds, but  someone had to invent the fashion trend to carry them instead of allowing them to be normal dogs. Not satisfied with handbag dogs we have moved on to another new fad for so-called “Teacup” dogs.

At one time these tiny dogs only existed in natural form as runts of a litter, the last in line, the weakest and sickest which often died or were ignored by their mothers. The clue to the health status of these dogs is in the term runt, but somewhere along the line someone decided what a good idea to start mating these sickly runts by seeking out and intentionally mating undersized dogs and begin a craze for these ‘cute’ miniature dogs.

They are called “new breeds” but of course this is nonsense, but a good marketing point. The market is mainly gullible young girls and other ‘fashion’ conscious women who inexplicably feel they are a necessary accessory and part with hundreds if not thousands of pounds to own one. For every post on the internet advising against buying one there is another extolling the virtues of getting one.

Someone has even invented a standard for a teacup breed which stipulates that they must be less than 17 inches long at age one year and weigh four pounds or less to qualify. This immediately raises problems as there is no guarantee what size it will grow to when bought as a tiny puppy and possibly disappoint its owner. They also come with a never-ending list of health, behavioural and safety issues including being easy prey for hawks, other dogs and predators, being stepped on, dying from falls and requiring special feeding and toileting.

Despite all this it doesn’t deter people from buying them and it is the same for all the other unsuitable pets as well. We have little interest in the needs of animals and the repercussions involved only self-interest and so we never learn – we just move on to the next poor creature to exploit.

A tribute to the faithful war horses and their human comrades.

It is obvious from official war diaries that the men depended on the war horses as much as the horses depended on them.

My grandfather Edwin Clark was a ‘Driver‘ in the Canadian Field Artillery who sat on one of the six horses pulling the 18-pounder field guns and was responsible for looking their welfare. It was dangerous work as he and the horses had to pull the guns into the front line, unharness them and then take them back to relative safety a 1,000 yards to the rear where he looked after all their needs under shell fire.

Despite all that the soldiers were going through the war horses were obviously loved and treated as comrades

He served in the same unit, the 4th. Division, 13th. Battery CFA throughout the war and the original War Diaries written up each evening by an officer of his Battery gave incredible descriptions and insights into the battles, the shelling, the casualties they suffered, the long marches and the conditions under which they fought.

What soon jumped out of the pages and gladdened me was that not only did they write about the state of the men and what they endured, but the diaries constantly mentioned their beloved horses and how they were suffering. It was obvious from the writings that it was generally believed by the men that they depended on the horses as much as the horses depended on them. They were in it together and just as the horses and mules did their utmost to help the troops the men reciprocated by doing all they could to ease their hardships. It is well known that the men formed strong bonds with their equine comrades.

Horses and mules were treated with affection

First World War mule and her handler.
“She is very stupid but I love her” – a soldier wrote this on the back of the photograph. Credit: National Museum of Scotland.

More horses and mules died of disease and exposure than from battle injuries and often it must have been impossible to give them adequate care. This is borne out by an officer who had to censor letters before they were sent, described how the men wrote home to their wives, girlfriends and mothers and gave examples of the care they took:

“Drivers often almost wept as they wrote of their faithful friends – the horses – wishing so much that they could be given more feed and better shelter. Such care and attention they gave these dumb animals. When nothing else was available an old sock was used to rub them down or to bandage a cracked heel, while breast collar and girth galls were eased by wrapping light articles around the harness to keep it from rubbing against the sore spot.”

It would seem that the men often ignored orders when it was detrimental to the horses’ welfare and on one occasion it is noted that following a long train journey the horses were unloaded and the drivers were ordered not to water them as there wasn’t time before a long march to the front. They ignored the order and watered and fed them anyway.

War horse, First world war, horse suffering
Soldiers were keen to do as much as they could for their horses’ welfare under terrible conditions. Credit Imperial War Museum.

Even the generals seemed to have affection and concern for them and found time to bring some humaneness among the horrors as hinted at in this extract about a General visiting the front in mid-winter:

“Our horses are in bad shape, but we are up to strength in guns. General Panet visited the Battery on the 11th. in the snow and saw horses wallowing in deep mud and immediately ordered them back to the lines declaring they were not to do more work for a few days”.

Even when issuing written orders thought was always given to ways of lessening the load and hardship of the horses and mules:

“There is a long march before any halt. It will therefore be necessary for Officers commanding batteries to pay the most scrupulous attention to every detail in connection with their horses. Riding on vehicles will be systemised [take turns] and the numbers riding thereon kept as low as possible. Guns and ammunition wagons are not to be loaded with unauthorised articles and throughout the march the condition of the horses must be ever in mind.”

War horse treated for wounds

It was common practice to bomb the areas where the horses were kept

One officer lamented in the War Diary that “the road to the wagon lines is strewn with dead horses” and the “the snowy and cold weather was having an effect on the horses”.  An insight into the terror caused to the horses is aptly described in this extract:

“the duty of the ‘stable pickets’ was an unenviable one, especially at night, when horse lines were being bombed or shelled. Quite apart from the danger of the explosions, there was always the chance of the picket ropes breaking and the horses stampeding. Horses frequently fought and kicked, becoming entangled in ropes and had to be followed and caught in the darkness”.

It was common practice to bomb the areas where the horses were kept as both sides realised the vital importance of them and my grandfather was badly wounded in such an attack. His 13th. Battery had just set up wagon-lines a few miles from the town of Raillencourt and were feeding the horses when the pilot of a plane literally dropped a load of bombs right onto the horses and men killing one driver and wounding nine other men including Edwin as well as wounding and killing many horses.

The scene was described as “chaotic with shrieks from both men and horses” particularly as the bombs had been a newly invented stick bomb that exploded a few inches from the ground throwing splinters of shrapnel all around. The shrapnel hit my grandfather in the upper thigh and he was taken back to England by ship for a month’s stay in hospital and luckily he didn’t have to return as the war ended.

War horse, war horse cruelty
More horses and mules died from disease, exhaustion and exposure than from enemy action.

For all the bad news it would appear that Christmas 1917 was a far happier time for the war horses in my grandfather’s Battery:

“The weather became colder and a light blanket of snow covered the ground. For the first time proper shelters were built for the horses, standings being laid with brick and soft stone from the ruins nearby, while iron sheeting was to serve as roofing and walls. Our horses soon showed the benefit of these precautions and by the constant care, losses and disease throughout the winter were practically nil”.

It is impossible for me to visualise or comprehend the carnage and horrors my grandfather must have witnessed to both humans and horses as it is the stuff of nightmares, but I like to think that my grandfather was a humane man and did all that he could to ease the suffering of the horses in his care. I also like to think that it was possibly  through him that I developed my soft spot for horses.

I wrote a book In remembrance of all the horses and men who suffered or perished in the Great War. orer a copy now:

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Remembering the war horses & the men who cared for them.
It is time to take Police horses off front-line duties.