one where science, religion, politics and law, and personal belief collide. The balance of this debate is prone to change over time and is a culturally and therefore spatially specific issue.
How we, as individuals and societies, view the sentience of dogs has a profound impact on how we use and treat them and is, as a result, crucial to understanding the position and utilization of dogs in the leisure experience. From a scientific perspective the dominant position of the 20th century was that dogs, like most animals, are not capable of conscious thought and, therefore, are not sentient beings (Masson, 1997; Thomas, 2000). It is within this context that Griffin (2001: 29) has stated that: ‘Behavioralists have been insisting for decades that the only appropriate scientific view of animal behavior is one that treats the animals as nearly as possible like mindless robots.’ This view is supported by Boakes (1992 in McConnell, 2005: 271), who has said that: ‘Attributing conscious thought to animals should be strenuously avoided in any serious attempt to understand their behavior, since it is untestable, empty, obstructionist and based on a false dichotomy.’ Boakes’ view of animals is underlain by the notion that unless it can be proved that they are sentient beings then we should continue to view them as lacking sentience. Thio (1983: 18) identified this view as a modernist one, whose proponents claim: ‘there is a world of difference between humans (as active subjects) and nonhuman beings and things (as passive objects). Humans can feel and reflect, but animals, plants, things and forces in nature cannot. Furthermore, humans have sacred worth and dignity, but the others do not.’ Consequently, while humans are self-defined as being sentient and therefore deserving of inherent rights concerning their freedom and welfare that encapsulate both their physical and mental wellness, it is clear, as MacFarland and Hediger (2009: 1) claimed that: ‘Many have contended that other animals deserve no such opportunities because they lack the abilities, particularly the cognitive abilities, to make use of them.’ Yet even something as apparently concrete as this perspective needs to be set against the realization that leading scientists such as Charles Darwin thought that animals, including dogs, were sentient beings (Morell, 2008). Indeed, Darwin is quoted as saying that: ‘dogs possess something very like a conscience. They certainly possess some power of self-command’ (Knoll, 1997: 15).
A shift has been occurring in scientific thought in recent years away from the previously dominant behaviourist paradigm (Duncan, 2006) and towards the realization that many animals, including dogs, experience a range of emotions. There are those who, as Griffin (2001) noted, suggest animals have at least simple thoughts (compared to humans), though these are probably different from those experienced by humans. This position is exemplified by Kiley-Worthington (1990: 95), who has stated: ‘That mammals at least feel something like pleasure or joy cannot be denied by any person who is prepared to admit that animals feel pain.’ Others, such as Bradshaw (2011: 210), are happy to state that: ‘dogs share our capacity to feel joy, love, anger, fear and anxiety. They also experience pain, hunger, thirst and sexual attraction.’ That this shift is an emerging one explains why as McConnell (2005: xxvii) noted:
In contrast to the beliefs of most dog lovers, current beliefs among scientists and philosophers about the emotional life of dogs are all over the map. Some argue that only humans can experience emotions, while others argue that non-human animals experience primitive emotions like fear and anger, but not more complicated ones like love and pride. At the other end of the continuum, some say it is good science to believe that many mammals come with the whole package, being capable of experiencing emotions in ways comparable to the way we experience them.
While the recognition that dogs experience emotions hints at a change in the position of scientific thinking regarding the sentience of dogs, it is important to note that discussions about how animals experience emotions is often set within the traditional scientific bulwarks of chemical reactions and evolution. This arguably relates to the traditional view that: ‘a phenomenon that is not publicly observable and confirmable is not the stuff of science’ (Horowitz, 2009a: 3). Consequently, the only way science can look at emotions, in animals or humans, is by distilling them down to the biological and chemical and away from the fuzzy reality in which emotions are experienced. Such a view of the emotions experienced by dogs and other animals allows them to be seen as biological processes necessary to the survival of the species. In this way an animal that experiences emotions can still be viewed as an object, an automaton reacting subconsciously to chemical inducements rather than a self-aware, sentient being. This view is echoed by McConnell (2005: 271), who identified that: ‘Some people assert that while animals may “have” emotions, they aren’t actually conscious of them.’ It is from this perspective that it may be argued that most scientists today are willing to attribute sentience to animals; but I would suggest this is a poor imitation of what sentience really is, something more than the merely subconscious, automated reading of emotions as chemically induced events in the body. Bradshaw (2011: 211) goes a little further than many scientists when stating: ‘dogs do possess some degree of consciousness. In other words, they are probably aware of their emotions, but to a lesser extent than humans are,’ while at the same time recognizing that there is little agreement across the scientific community on this point. Consequently, it may be argued that, while agreement on animals possessing a range of emotions may have been reached, there is an ongoing debate raging as to whether this equates to animals being self-aware, sentient beings capable of individual agency.
It is against the backdrop of the traditionally dominant view of animals as lacking sentience that laws, rights, and welfare issues and standards relating to dogs – indeed, to all animals – need to be viewed. In virtually all cases it is clear that animals are viewed as objects, or property (Sanders, 1999; Bekoff, 2007; Rudy, 2011); not all that different in cold legal language from inanimate possessions. The implications of being an object as opposed to a sentient being are clear. An object has no rights and needs no rights; its welfare is of no concern as it is clear that an object has no feelings or emotions. Even where we see the advancement of the idea that animals have rights and are sentient, as argued below, Francione (2004: 120) has stated that: ‘The status of animals as property renders meaningless our claim that we reject the status of animals as things. We treat animals as the moral equivalent of inanimate objects with no morally significant interests.’ This highlights how existing laws based on one view of animals may be poorly equipped to handle significant shifts in the notion of what the non-human animal is and is capable of.
Against the view of dogs and other animals as objects lacking sentience or only possessing a poor form of sentience that consists of experiencing emotions as nothing more than chemical reactions in the body is a voracious voice that demands that dogs are sentient, self-aware beings capable of feelings (Siegal, 1994; McConnell, 2005; Bekoff, 2007). This is a viewpoint that is being increasingly voiced in relation to animals in general (Bostock, 1993; Lehman, 1997; MacFarland and Hediger, 2009). Jane
