The Dark Side of James Herriot. Vaccination in Veterinary Medicine

Chapter 9

Slaves of Our Affection. The Myth of the Happy Pet

Charles Danten, DMV, M.A

Note: Thanks to RFK Jr., many who trusted authorities are stunned to learn how harmful vaccinations can be in human medicine. I wasn’t surprised. 

Why?

Because pharmaceutical companies, their corrupt allies in government, watchdog agencies like the CDC and FDA, and the medical industry mirror the pet industry’s behavior.

Consider this when reading the following chapter on pet vaccination from my book, *Slaves of Our Affection* (2015). Though dated, little has changed.

***

While I was still a student, I was fortunate to meet an experienced veterinarian who would take me under his wing one summer and let me put my studies to more practical use. Despite what I will say about “Jim,” I am grateful to him for showing me the ropes. In retrospect, he played a crucial role in introducing me to the harsh realities of the veterinary world. 

That summer, I was to become Jim’s veterinary assistant. Right after my exams, I packed my suitcase and drove off in my old Ford Custom. After an uneventful eight-hour drive, I finally reached my destination. It was an enormous, Victorian-style mansion with painted wood, located in a posh neighborhood on the outskirts of a small and friendly-looking city. I rang the doorbell. A massive individual opened the door, a welcoming, jovial smile on his face. It was Jim, the man with whom I would work and live for the next few months.

Jim was courteous by any standard, a real gentleman. His charming British accent reminded me of James Herriot, one of my heroes at the time, whose sensitively-told stories contributed immensely to the popularization of animals and of the veterinary profession. Herriot alone is undoubtedly at the origin of many veterinary careers.

Jim offered me a beer and we got to know each other while relaxing in his backyard in the shade of a majestic oak tree. The next day, I would accompany him for the first time on his rounds in the country. 

With thirty years of experience under his belt, he treated all domestic species: horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, cats, you name it. In the jargon of the trade, he had a mixed practice. As comfortable with farm work as with city work, he could go straight from castrating a pig in a barn stall without anesthesia to spaying a cat in his clinic, this time using anesthesia and following the strictest of guidelines for aseptic condi-tions.

This difference in protocol seemed a little absurd to me. After all, an animal’s capacity for pain has nothing to do with whether it lives on a farm or in the city. The sad truth did not escape my attention: farm animals have a lesser sentimental value than pets, and as a result, most of them are treated with much less regard. 

With time, Jim came to trust me more and more, allowing me to administer vaccines and even perform minor, routine operations. One day, I noticed that several vials containing a vaccine against feline leukemia were only half-full. Looking at them more closely, I spotted a pinhole in each of the rubber tops that sealed them. It was mysterious, even suspicious, and so I made a point to mention it to Jim the first chance I got. I was unprepared for his response.

A little uneasy and defensive, Jim admitted that to save money, he would transfer half the dose from the full vials to empty ones he picked out of the trash after office hours. He really believed that it didn’t matter much, that there was probably enough vaccine in a vial to vaccinate two, if not three animals. 

He then proceeded to lecture me on the harsh realities of the business and on how important it was to cut costs in order to survive and prosper. It had already come to my attention that Jim was a master at economizing. After a surgery, he saved all the leftover bits of suture material he could gather. He arranged them delicately in a drawer on a paper towel, and he always managed to find a use for them later. Gauze soiled with blood was rinsed with cold tap water and immersed in a sterilizing solution. He kept a drawer for drying paper towels that had been used to clean the examination table. For routine surgeries on cats, like declawing, spaying, and neutering, he administered only ketamine, a potent anesthetic that is cheap, safe, and easy to administer and manage, but which has few or no analgesic properties. The gap between school and the real world felt enormous.

I stood there listening in silence, untouched by his arguments. I was young still, and unable to compromise on principle. To me, what he was doing was a serious breach of ethics: you don’t mess around with the recommended dosage of a vaccine. I was not quite finished with vet school, but I had learned at least that golden rule. 

One thought lead to another, and it dawned on me that Jim treated pets just about the same way he treated farm animals. He was just more hypocritical about it. 

When I told him my thoughts on the matter, our discussion quickly turned sour. Jim, this otherwise good-natured, easygoing man, became terrifyingly furious. Banging on the table with his clenched fists, he fired me, telling me I would fail as a vet. Unrecognizably red with anger, he burst out of the room, his dignity considerably blemished. 

In the space of a few minutes, darkness had smothered the light. Because of a puny hole in a rubber cork, I had just sealed the fate of our friendship forever. My last days with him passed under a painfully heavy silence. We parted with barely a handshake. He turned his back to me and, as I watched him walk away, I knew I would never see him again.

***

For the past fifty years, vaccination in veterinary medicine has become a dangerous procedure, often needless and with little or no scientific and medical justification. 

This statement seems bold, even preposterous, considering that vaccination is a highly valued medical procedure. So much so that some pet owners, who pride themselves on being compassionate and kind to their four-legged children, will feel insulted and angered by the insinuation that the majority of pet vaccination is a sham and that their act of love, paid for annually with hard-earned money, is worthless from both the animal’s point of view and that of science. Others will just turn away or ignore this challenge to popular opinion without even bothering to find out how it might be true. 

Questioning the underlying assumptions or founding credo that governs gratifying actions, such as vaccination, is taboo in our society, as unfathomable as questioning the existence of God. 

Annual boosters

No one can explain why since the sixties, pharmaceutical companies have been recommending the annual immunization of carnivorous domestic animals (dog, cat and ferret). The principles of immunology guarantee that a statistically significant proportion of individuals will be protected for a long period, even for life, by a single properly inoculated vaccine. This is especially true in the case of acute viral diseases such as distemper, rabies, or parvo in dogs, and panleukopenia in cats. (1) People are certainly not vaccinated every year, from infancy until death, with several different vaccines each time. Nor do we have annual blood titers taken, as some veterinarians have been recommending for the past decade or so, in order to determine if re-administration of a vaccine is required. 

In 1985, Drs. Ronald D. Schultz and T. R. Phillips, two American vaccination specialists, wrote the following in the eleventh edition of Kirk’s Current Veterinary Therapy, a reference book considered the Bible of veterinary medicine:

Immunity to viruses persists for years or for the life of the animal. Successful vaccination to most bacterial pathogens produces an immunologic memory that re-mains for years, allowing an animal to develop a protective anamnestic (secondary) response when exposed to virulent organisms. Only the immune response to toxins (such as tetanus) requires boosters... and no toxin vaccines are currently used for dogs or cats. The practice of annual vaccination in our opinion should be considered of questionable efficacy unless it is used as a mechanism to provide an annual physical examination or is required by law (i.e. certain states require annual revaccination for rabies). (2)

Dr. Niels C. Pedersen, of the Department of Medicine and Epidemiology at the University of California-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, said the following in a conference organized in 1997 by one of the most important veterinary associations in the world, the American Veterinary Hospital Association (AAHA):

Many veterinarians, and still a greater number of cli-ents, have come to question the medical basis for rou-tine yearly boosters for their pets, and rightfully so! The practice is not defendable. […] We are not vac-cinated with five or six different vaccines every year of our lives and why should our pets! Many human vaccines are given during childhood and provide lifelong protection to a significant number of vaccinates. Until 20 years ago, vaccines were given only to puppies and kittens. The only exception was rabies vaccination, which was given every 2-3 years for public health reasons more than animal health reasons. […] Why, then, do we insist on giving boosters when the practice is not medically sound? […] Booster immunizations are looked upon by many clients as simply another way for their veterinarian to make money. […] we must look at vaccination as a medical procedure and not a source of income. […] The term “practice builder” should be forever removed from our vocabulary and replaced with “client-builder. (3)

Vaccination protocols

Contrary to human medicine, there are no standard immunization protocols in veterinary medicine. A survey of twenty-seven schools of veterinary medicine in the U.S. and Canada showed twenty-seven different protocols for vaccination. (4) Manufacturers recommend a vaccination schedule and veterinarians typically follow it, even though they are not required to do so legally. (5) In some states, the only legally mandated annual vaccine is rabies. I emphasize “legally” because there is no scientific reason for routine vaccinations every year. The rabies vaccine has a scientifically proven efficacy of three years and more.

Pets that never go near areas in which a given disease is reported are routinely vaccinated against it anyway. A cat living alone on the twelfth floor in downtown Manhattan can receive up to ten vaccines at a time every year for life. A dog that never goes beyond the fire hydrant at the corner can be inoculated with up to twelve diseases each time. (6) 

For business reasons, it is common for pets to be vaccinated the day before a surgery or even on the same day, a time when the immune system, seriously depressed by the stress of the procedure, cannot respond adequately for at least the two following weeks. (7) 

In the United States, at least 20% of the market hinges on direct sale to the public via the Internet, catalogs, and stores. The equivalent in humans is unthinkable. Breeders and regular pet owners are able to buy whatever vaccines they want, along with syringes, needles, and even drugs like epinephrine. Depending on the age of the animal and the type of vaccine used, clients are sometimes advised to vaccinate young animals every week for six to seven weeks, when once or twice would be sufficient. (8) 

Vaccines in search of diseases

Encouraged by relaxed licensing requirements, pharmaceutical companies have flooded the market with unnecessary, poorly tested, and ineffective vaccines since the late 1970s. (9) The focus is on creating wealth and jobs rather than quality products backed by sound medical and scientific evidence. (10) In the United States alone, there are currently eighty trademarked canine vaccines, and as many for cats. (11) It is possible to vaccinate animals against thirty diseases and counting. In 1998, vaccination specialist Dr. Richard B. Ford warned, “Most of these vaccines are so useless as to be called ‘vaccines in search of diseases.’” (12)

Vaccine manufacturers promote their products by appeal-ing directly to the good hearts and fears of the public, and even of veterinarians. When the Lyme disease vaccine was first introduced some years ago, pharmaceutical companies lied about the seriousness and importance of the disease, even going as far as to suggest that children could catch it directly from dogs, a medical impossibility. (13) This vaccine is still being administered all over the United States and Canada even though the condition, which is mild in most cases, occurs almost exclusively in thirteen north-eastern and upper-midwestern states. (14)

Millions of dogs are also uselessly inoculated with vaccines to prevent coronavirus and rotavirus, two rare gastrointestinal conditions found only in overpopulated and unsanitary puppy mills. (15)

Several other vaccines on the market are useless for reasons that have been well documented (in cats: feline calicivirus and herpesvirus, chlamydia, infectious peritonitis, ringworm, feline leukemia, and feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV); in dogs: leptospirosis, parainfluenza, bordetella, periodontitis, western diamondback rattlesnake, and Giardia vaccines. Yet, in 2009, all these vaccines were still routinely recommended and used. (17)

In 2002, Dr. Robert L. Rogers, a Texas veterinarian, filed a complaint against all licensed veterinarians engaged in companion animal practice in the state of Texas for violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct, rule 573.26, which states: 

Licensed veterinarians shall conduct their practice with honesty, integrity, and fair dealing to clients in time and services rendered, and in the amount charged for services, facilities, appliances and drugs.

Dr. Rogers asserts in his complaint the following: 

The present practice of marketing of vaccinations for companion animals constitutes fraud by misrepresentation, fraud by silence, theft by deception, and undue influence by all veterinarians engaged in companion animal practice […]. (18)

Efficacy

Dr. Ronald D. Schultz, one of America’s most respected vaccination specialists, found that out of six vaccines for canine parvovirus, a serious and often fatal gastrointestinal dis-ease in puppies, only two were effective. (19) Another study from Holland found that only two out of six vaccines for rabies were effective. (20) According to other independent studies, some vaccines against feline leukemia produced no better results than distilled water; the best ones had at most 25 to 50% efficacy as opposed to 90 to 100% as claimed by the manufacturer. (21) 

Safety

The number of vaccines that stay on the market despite a bad safety record is unconscionable. One brand of vaccine against coronavirus, a rare gastrointestinal condition in dogs, killed hundreds of dogs before being removed from the market. (22) 

“Paradoxically,” says Dr. Pedersen, “there is no human counterpart to the canine Lyme vaccine, even though the disease in humans is far more important, because a Lyme vaccine modeled on the canine product does not meet safety and efficacy standards for human vaccine.” (23)

Rabies and feline leukemia vaccines, two of the vaccines involved in the skin cancer epidemic in cats, have killed millions of cats and continue to do so. (24)

Adverse reactions

Although an alarming number of adverse reactions to vaccination have been reported, the scale of the problem is a statistical black hole for several reasons. This gives a generous amount of leeway to marketing specialists.

– It is difficult to detect and study adverse reactions rou-tinely because they are not always clinically visible. 

– An undetermined number of adverse reactions occur days, weeks, months, even years after the matter, when a clear cause-to-effect link is almost impossible to make; most compensation claims in humans are rejected precisely for that reason. (25) 

– Although pharmaceutical companies are technically responsible for keeping track of side effects and reporting them to government agencies like the Federal Drug Administration in the United States and its equivalent in Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, they simply don’t. And there is no law to oblige them. Furthermore, what little information they have – from safety studies conducted in their laboratories or from incidents reported by practitioners in the field – is not available to the public. (26) 

– Veterinarians, unlike human doctors, are not required to report adverse reactions to immunization. And generally, they don’t. (27)

– The high turnover rate of pets adds greatly to the difficulty of identifying with precision the scale of the problem. When something unusual goes wrong, a client always has the option of getting rid of his pet. And for many, this is the favored choice. 

Skin cancer in cats

Twenty years ago, it became customary to use inert vaccines containing several irritating chemicals, notably aluminum hydroxide, a product that triggers inflammation and eventually an immune response. It turns out that in the cat, for reasons unknown, the reaction triggered by this substance and others like it leads to an extremely aggressive and un-treatable tumor known as a vaccine-associated feline fibrosarcoma. The risk of developing this type of cancer depends on the number of vaccines given in the same inoculation (“cocktail” vaccines are explained below), the number of repetitions or boosters administered, and whether reinoculation occurs in the same area, often subcutaneously between the shoulder blades. Rabies and feline leukemia vaccines seem to be the most frequent culprits. (28)

The number of these cancerous tumors reported in 2005 is 1,300 per million. (29) I emphasize the word “reported” because it is impossible, for the reasons listed above, to accurately study the scale of the problem. Dr. Ford mentioned the number 2,000 per million at a 1998 conference in Montreal, but this is also an estimate. (30) In addition, one must keep in mind that other types of adverse reactions are not included in these numbers. Although they seem relatively low, put in perspective, they are phenomenal: in humans, only 100 total adverse reactions per million are tolerated. (31) Despite all this, veterinarians in the field continue to vaccinate cats with the same frequency and the same inoculations; what has changed, however, is that the vaccination site is now more commonly the lower part of the thigh or the end of the tail, instead of between the shoulder blades. Thus, should a tumor develop, an amputation is always an option for the client willing to pay for such a procedure. (32)

In 2006, the American Association of Feline Practitioners made the following laconic statement:

Regardless of the efforts of countless individuals, the problem of vaccine-associated sarcomas in cats has not been solved. Researchers in academia and industry continue to study this singularly complex problem, but it is reasonable to assume that the definitive solution will not be identified in the immediate future. (33)

Cocktail vaccines and the immune system

These vaccines, containing four, six, or even nine attenuated diseases each, came into style in the seventies. From a strictly business point of view, cocktail vaccines are practical because they require less storage place and can be administered successfully all at once, for a higher financial reward. From a medical point of view, however, these mixtures pose several problems. 

As with any other veterinary vaccines, no medical knowledge is required in order to procure these. Anyone can order them from a catalog and use them as they see fit. Since the particular case of each individual animal is not taken into consideration, most are routinely inoculated against diseases they have zero chance of catching. (34)

Cocktails cause an undetermined number of immunization failures and adverse reactions. In nature, an animal is unlikely to be threatened by more than one or two different diseases at once – never four, six, or nine of them at the same time. Bombarded by excessive and repeated doses of different foreign bodies, overwhelmed by too many antigenic attacks at once, the immune system can go berserk. This can result in autoimmune disease, wherein antibodies are created that attack parts of the animal’s own body. Antibodies may be formed, for instance, against the platelets, specialized cells involved in the coagulation of blood. According to American veterinarian Jean Dodds, this reaction occurs shortly after inoculation; serious, sometimes fatal, internal bleeding is the outcome. Although the exact frequency of this problem is unknown, certain purebred dogs, including Rottweilers, Dobermans and spaniels, are particularly predisposed. (35)

“Dirty” vaccines

There are several ways in which vaccination can do more harm than good. For one, diseases can result from the microbial contamination of a vaccine. Spoilage is also a serious problem because vaccines contain highly perishable animal products like egg yolk derivatives, bovine albumen, and casein. In addition to their perishable nature, animal products are full of toxic substances. “Dirty” vaccines are thought to be the cause of a recent increase in chronic diseases in both humans and animals. Use of cheaper multidose vials is especially dangerous. (36) 

Other adverse reactions:

– Hypersensitivity or allergic reactions.

– Suppression of the immune system and the activation of a latent disease like leukemia, peritonitis, and the immunodeficiency syndrome in cats (FIV).

– Interference with the results of blood tests used to diagnose certain conditions, resulting in false positives.

– Aggravation of existing conditions like cancer, epilepsy, and allergies (higher susceptibility to allergies to pollen, pet food, or one’s own body, the last of these resulting in auto-immune diseases of the thyroid, kidney, etc.). (37)

A Few perpetuating factors

For the past thirty years or more, legions of guidelines have been defined for the purpose of regulating the use of vaccines; veterinarians have been advised over and over again by vaccination specialists to stop vaccinating animals for medically unjustified reasons; dozens of articles have been written on the subject; lawsuits have been filed; but these measures are not succeeding at putting an end to the abuse of vaccination. While it is relatively easy to formulate rules and good intentions, for reasons open to speculation, getting veterinarians in the field to adopt them is another story. (38)

Vested interests

The specialists that make up the surveillance committees (such as the Feline Sarcoma Task force) all have vested interests in the industry, an obvious conflict of interest. How adverse reactions are surveyed in the field remains unclear, even more so now that these committees are no longer active. There are no concrete measures to stop vaccination abuse, and in the United States, none to stop the sale of vaccines directly to the public via pet shops and the Internet. Nor does there seem to be any desire to impose stricter regulations on veterinarians and pharmaceutical companies or to standardize vaccination protocols. The underlying assumption of these committees is that vaccines on the market are for the most part safe, effective, and necessary. (39)

Misinformation

Since there are no public funds for research in the field of pets, the pharmaceutical industry has almost full control. They subsidize continuing education seminars, scientific journals, scientific studies, and laboratories that rarely go against their financial interests. According to Texas veterinarian Dr. Robert Rogers, “the main objective is to influence veterinarians to continue deceptive trade practice in the marketing of vaccines.” The goal is the protection at all costs of the existing market, of the propagation of pet mania, and of the creation of new market outlets. (40) 

Divide and conquer

If a layman tries to make sense of the available infor-mation on vaccination, good luck. The Internet is full of conflicting opinions and so-called scientific studies; the deck of cards is so well shuffled that few people can pick a winner. Even PhDs and veterinarians get boggled up in the bottom-less pit of bad science that plagues the fields of small animal nutrition, genetics, and medicine, as well as animal-assisted therapy and pet psychology. To make matters worse, most people are convinced that everything in life is a series of gray zones, that nothing is black and white, and that everyone can be right at the same time. Which is absurd.

Lack of reliable historical and geographical records

Although diseases like distemper and parvo in dogs and panleukopenia in cats seem under control today, there are no historical records, apart from anecdotal evidence, that could be used to evaluate the extent of the benefit of vaccination campaigns. Nevertheless, everyone claims as an irrevocable truth, without the slightest piece of sound evidence, that these diseases were at one time widespread and that vaccination cured the problem. Even for rabies, there were no dependable records until after World War II and in some areas, until after the sixties. To this day, there is no data either on the geographic prevalence of infectious diseases of cats and dogs. Except for rabies, there is no system of declaration like there is in human medicine. These gaps results in the systematic vaccination of animals against diseases they are unlikely to catch in a home environment. (41) 

Consumerism

Most common infectious diseases that plague companion animals take root in pet shops and factory breeding farms like puppy mills, where overpopulation, intense breeding, genetic abnormalities, unhealthy sanitary conditions, a poor diet, and a lack of exercise are the rule. It is highly abnormal, even dangerous for any animal, to be raised in such an environment. These breeding grounds for disease were invented to cater to the demands of consumerism, a powerful force in our modern lifestyle which thrives on problems artificially created by its own doing, in a dog-eat-dog fashion tantamount to cannibalism. 

Indoctrination

Most people, right or wrong, including the public, media, veterinarians, humane societies, and the industry in general, are well-intentioned and want to do right by our companion animals. That was certainly true in my case. For most of my career as a veterinarian, I was convinced that annual boosters were necessary. I thought vaccination was one of the safest and most beneficial medical acts in history and I was convinced the vaccines I administered were safe, effective, and necessary. That is what I had been told by professors and salespeople, and that is what everyone is conditioned to be-lieve from an early age. To even suggest that these notions are false is a heresy that can lead to ostracism, if not persecution, a lawsuit, or jail time. 

Ideological immunity

In retrospect, a few years after graduation, when the realities of the profession started to weaken the strength of my inculcated notions and values, I know I played dumb to some extent so as not to jeopardize my status, self-esteem, and bread and butter. It was Upton Sinclair who said: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.” We have a built-in ideological immune system that automatically protects us from ideas that can put our survival or self-confidence at risk. While our eyes capture the world as-is on our retinas, our brain per-forms an editing job in the shadows, a cut-and-paste operation, to adjust reality to fit our pre-existing ideas of it. Anything we see, read, or hear is unconsciously revised to accommodate notions we already have and take for granted. 

This phenomenon, called scotoma  is one of the major obstacles to change. I have experienced it numerous times myself. When I was a veterinarian, I used to go through medical journals highlighting statements that fit with my values of the time period, leaving in obscurity any part of reality that didn’t back up my convictions and interests. After leaving the profession, this fairly spectacular duality between good (that which comforted me in my certainty) and evil (that which threatened my certainty) jumped out at me as I flipped through these same journals. While before only the highlight-ed sections caught my attention, now I was able to see the whole of the text.

This is what happens when we read or hear something counter to popular wisdom: much of it is totally excluded from our consciousness. Unless we become familiar enough with the new information that it suddenly makes sense, we have a hard time even beginning to listen.

Public complacency

Ironically, although misrepresentation of vaccines is against the law, the State Board of Texas Veterinarians and the Attorney General ignored the complaint issued by Dr. Rogers, the veterinarian cited above. Eventually, after some pressure by the State Legislators, the Attorney General of the Consumer Protection Division decided to accept a case, preferably a suit against a large chain rather than one against veterinarians. Unfortunately, Dr. Rogers was unable to find one single client willing to participate in such a lawsuit. (42) 

Pet owners are complacent about the notorious abuse of vaccination because they need to have their compassion validated through this highly valued medical act performed by themselves or preferably, for those who can afford it, by a professional that personifies a love of animals. What pet owners are really after when they bring their companion to the vet for a needless vaccination, health exam, or expensive brand of pet food is a certificate, a receipt, any kind of concrete proof that states: “Although I exploit animals in every way imaginable, I really do love them, see, my vet says so.” The high financial value assigned to these goods and services is meant to further increase their perceived value and therefore their moral impact. Clients who have unlimited financial resources can have their animals treated to death if they desire to do so, paradoxically, for moral reasons. 

According to veterinarian and historian Susan D. Jones, author of Valuing Animals: Veterinarians and Their Patients in Modern America, veterinarians have built their profession on American’s uncertainty about the ‘proper’ way to behave with animals. They validate the use of animals as commodities by praising themselves and their clients for their passionate attitudes towards domesticated creatures. (43)

I argue that unscientific vaccination, along with other such needless and cruel medical procedures and services, is one of the ways they do so. This is why veterinarians are so reluctant to change their ways. Veterinarians have built their reputation on scientific grounds to the point of being perceived as first-class scientists. If they admitted to any wrongdoing, it would be a terrible blow to their image – after all, it took them over a century to shed the “quack doctor” stigma. Cli-ents would feel the heat also, since they pride themselves on the things they do to care for their pets. In the end, both veterinarians and their clients run the risk of shattering to pieces the house of mirrors they have painstakingly built at the expense of their loved ones. 

Mankind is clever at finding ways to rationalize and put a smile on this and all self-serving, unnecessary, wasteful, cruel, and aggressive exploitations of those we metaphorically call our children. In a world of consumers, everything has a price, including peace of mind. 

Superficiality

American historian Kathleen Kete, author of a magisterial analysis of pet keeping in nineteenth-century France, has an interesting insight on the subject of scientifically unjustified vaccination. In a chapter on the fear of rabies, called “Rabies and the Bourgeoisie,” Dr. Kete states why the issue of vaccination is probably much more complex than it appears at first glance: 

The fear of rabies lies at the intersection of the organizing themes of bourgeois life and can be read as an expression of uneasiness about modern civilization and its tolls, about the uncertain conquest of culture over nature. […] Fear of rabies [in pets] was focused on the pathology in humans and what matters to us as it did to nineteenth-century bourgeois, obviously, is that the most frightening aspects of that pathology were constructions. Fear was of their own making. It was the beastly appetites of humanity that were expressed in the symptomatology of rabies. […] The strengths of “instinctual passions,” of sexuality and aggression, and their potentiality for revolt against an antithetical domesticity are clearly implied in the debate on rabies, an abortive uprising of the beast in the bourgeois. (44)

The Democratization of Basic Instincts

Charles Danten

After the Renaissance, in the XVIth century, at the dawn of the industrial revolution, a “mutation of sensibilities” begins which will result in the XIXth century in a major change of the animal condition. Until then, confined to the wealthy classes, the passion for pets spread to the rising classes of the bourgeoisie, and even to the working classes. (1) 

A Terrible Plague 

Before that, men lived like animals, in tune with their animality, without any clear demarcation between one and the other; pigs, cows, chickens, dogs, and cats, everyone crammed together in the same house, in the same yard, and in the same street. Manifest violence, both towards humans and animals, was widespread, in all social strata. The men all carried knives in their belts, which they did not hesitate to draw at the slightest pretext. Fear was everywhere. One had to be constantly on one’s guard. (2)

 

Compulsory Schooling

The stick alone being ineffective, even counter-productive since it incited to revolt, the authorities of the time chose a gentler way to manage impulses and increase social cohesion: compulsory schooling. This major renovation in the way of training the animal inside is a Prussian invention that forced all citizens to submit to a long process of socialization that guaranteed good behavior while preventing dissension. Its institution was painful, as parents of that time were strongly opposed to it; children were often led to school by soldiers at gunpoint. (3) Today, ironically, only the gun, and even then, could prevent parents from bringing their children to school for indoctrination. 

The Weaponization of Writing 

According to French social anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, to instill good behavior, everyone had to learn to read and write, so the production of books suddenly intensified on a massive scale: 

Writing seems to favor the exploitation of men before their enlightenment. [...] The primary function of written communication is to facilitate enslavement. [...] The systemic action of European states in favor of compulsory education, which developed during the 19th century, went hand in hand with the extension of military service and proletarianization. The fight against illiteracy was thus confused with the reinforcement of the control of citizens by the Power. For it is necessary that all know how to read so that the latter can say: no one is supposed to ignore the law. (4)

The Civilizing Process 

 “The authority of the state and of the teacher must be transferred from the outside to the inside of the subject,” emphasizes the Prussian theologian Hermann Francke (1663-1727), one of the founders of the present-day educational system, “... that is why it is important to integrate the rules of power into the personality of the pupil as early as possible so that he will be self-disciplined.” (5) 

Thus, the principles of virtue and good behavior must penetrate deep into the student’s psychology, internalized, somatized to the point of making him think that he is free to do as he wishes. (6) 

If misbehavior was still punished by the stick (fear) or positive punishment, it was thought at that time, as it still is today, that passive domination, by the carrot (pleasure) was the ideal instrument of control. 

 

“Excessive severity hardens or embitters the pupil, strive to be a father not a disciplinarian; as an instrument of pedagogical control, affection is far more effective than corporal punishment; use gentle rather than open violence, that way, genuine obedience is not merely outward, but comes from deep within the soul. It is not rendered out of [hard] coercion but with a willing heart,” argues Hermann Francke. (7) 

In this training scheme, various handouts and treats quickly lead to dependence and submission to established rules. Replacing open violence with its anodyne, affection, what H. Francke calls “gentle violence,” (8) is much more efficient and revolt-proof. Anyone who doesn’t obey or act as is required receives no gratification or feel-good sensations. It’s as simple as that. In this form of training, the victim cannot revolt because there are no physical blows. All he feels is a void, or a vague, unpleasant sensation in the pit of his stomach. This makes this kind of invisible control much more perverse and crueler by its subtlety and sophistication than open violence. 

In older democracies, where this training scheme has been perfected, citizens in general no longer have to be forced to comply with established rules. Obedience is second nature. Instincts are regulated with state-of-the-art domination, with a minimum of open violence, thereby creating the illusion that everyone is free to come and go as he pleases, to the point of loving it and asking for seconds in the spirit of this quote falsely attributed to Aldous Huxley, but often repeated: 

The perfect dictatorship would be a dictatorship that would have the appearance of democracy, a prison without walls from which the prisoners would not think of escaping. A system of slavery where, thanks to consumption and entertainment, the slaves would have the love of their servitude. (9)

 

Civilization and Its Discontents 

This kind of educational scheme based on affection and gentle violence quickly causes a disruption of the emotional regulator, or “emotionstat,” and a progressive emotional dependence that leads to infantilization and feelings of emptiness and loneliness. In short, a chronic anxiety develops that pushes one to compulsive indulgence in a never-ending vicious circle, which can culminate in bizarre and unpredictable ways. 

 While some will cope with this chronic anxiety by channeling it into various forms of escapes like cell-phone addiction, zootherapy, hoarding, smoking, bulimia, binge drinking, compulsive shopping, hypersexuality, others will simply channel it into various psychosomatic diseases like chronic urinary problems (interstitial cystitis), colitis, heart, skin problems, and self-mutilation. (10) 

This portrait can be transposed on a larger scale to nations and civilizations. Extreme or neoliberal capitalism, an Orwellian type of “inclusive” capitalism — defined by the morally unrestricted exploitation of goods, people, animals, services, and capital under the mantle of democracy, humanism, philanthropy, goodness, and love — which could be considered as another form of flight from anxiety, has certainly led us into a planetary depression. Never-ending commercial expansion, war, social chaos, sexual dystopia, loss of biodiversity, pollution, and a growing gap between the rich and the poor are a few psychosomatic expressions of this deep depression. In the same line of thought, the 9/11 attacks, for example, can be seen as a bizarre outcome of this illness, a form of self-mutilation of the same nature as genocides. 

 

The Bestiary, the Shadow and the Light of the Human Saga 

Naturally, this radical change in the exercise of power and the management of our instincts transposes itself on the human-animal relationship. The master implanted within deals with the outside world, notably animals, in the only way he knows how, preferably using various forms of affection. Hence, the enhancement of our virtues by positive and negative conditioning and the repression of our defects by positive punishment translate on the outside by a greater fondness for those species which flatter us via their latent symbolism, and an increased brutality towards those which shame us via their latent symbolism. 

This translates starting in the early XIXth century into an inordinate affection for pets (the light) (11) and the birth and massive proliferation of factory farms in conditions of cruelty that are completely unjustified from a strictly production point of view (the shadow). (12) 

To put it differently, our disturbing impulses are symbolically repressed in depth in factory farms, and our accommodating impulses are exalted on the surface in the homes. 

The demarcation between the two is often fuzzy because training schemes between these two poles — pleasure and fear — can vary considerably between and within species. This makes the relationship to animals — and to people, since they are also trained in this way — sometimes difficult to interpret, since there are so many variations. 

Broadly speaking, pets are situated towards the carrot pole and livestock at the other extreme, towards the stick pole. But within either extreme, the dynamics can vary considerably. The dog, for example, can be at either pole. However, the dog is usually trained with a mixture of fear and pleasure, while the cat, like the citizens of a well-oiled democracy, is trained almost exclusively with the carrot. The phenomenon must be seen on a global perspective rather than a case-by-case one. 

And on a horizontal scale of cruelty and hypocrisy graded from the least cruel and hypocritical to the cruelest and most hypocritical, the glorified relationship with pets is skewed to the cruelest and least authentic end of the scale. Here, as we shall see in a future article, goodness is the instrument of power and its most evil manifestation. 

Thus, according to this version of things, by its manifest violence and cruelty, the condition of farm animals would be a living dramatization of an openly totalitarian model of society, and, by its latent violence and cruelty, the condition of companion animals would be a living dramatization of a democratic model of society. The fact that these two categories of animals are present in a democracy indicates that within this political structure, totalitarianism is indeed still alive, but in a “declawed” or passive form, invisible to the naked eye, but ready to pounce at the slightest opportunity. 

This Theory Raises a Number of Troubling Questions 

Is our democracy authentic? Are children educated according to their own needs or are they weaponized for the same purposes as animals? Are women really nicer than men? And what about the people on the left, the so-called liberals and humanists? Are they more human than those of the so-called extreme right? Has humanity evolved to a higher level of consciousness? Does moral and spiritual evolution even exist? Is our current social structure an illusion collectively maintained with lies and deceit? 

If we presuppose, that domestic animals are revelators of authenticity. Their absence by our side would mean nothing, but according to this theory, their presence by our side would be symptomatic of a confused mind that tries to manage its impulses by different means oscillating between affection and fear. 

In this perspective, the human-animal bond would be a way to detect, with surgical precision, the evil that can sometimes hide in its opposite, goodness. Thus, if you want to know the true nature of a person — or on a larger scale, a nation like the US — that looks down at you from the height of his moral and spiritual superiority, with a dog tethered to his feet or a cat on his lap, you will know where that person or nation is located on the scale of goodness. If the animal in question eats industrial kibble, even better, you will then smell for good the putrid odor of sulfur that emanates from its entrails... the devil’s favorite den, these days and ages. 

In short, we try to obey the precepts that are written in some guide of good conduct of our invention; short of solutions and out of desperation, we blindly follow the leaders who best embody the human ideal that we covet. 

In the meantime, the real problems are relegated to the back burner: how our brain works, how we fall victim to its traps, how our buried past leads us by the nose and how we refuse to question our founding creed. In the end, our moral and spiritual evolution is not the result of understanding, but of mimicry and escape. 

 

References and Notes 

1. K. Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England (1500-1800), Penguin, 1983. 

 2. Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations, Wiley-Blackwell, 2000. 

3. John Taylor Gatto, The Underground History of American Education, 2002; Dumbing us down, 2008; Weapons of Mass Instruction, 2011, New Society Publishers: www.johntaylorgatto.com. 

4. Claude Lévi-Strauss, Tristes tropiques, Plon, 1955, p. 344. 

5. James Melton, Absolutism and the eighteenth-century origins of compulsory schooling in Prussia and Austria, Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 40. 

6. A more in-depth explanation of somatization of behavior is beyond the scope of this article. For those who are interested in this question see: Antonio R. Damasio, “The Somatic Marker Hypothesis,” Descartes' Error. Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, Harper Collins, 1994, p. 174. 

7. James Melton, work cited, p. 42. 

8. Ibid. 

9. http://wiki.gentilsvirus.org/index.php?title=Thread:Discussion:FV:Huxley1958:LeMeilleurDesMondes/Citation_faussement_attribu%C3%A9e_%C3%A0_Huxley&lqt_method=edit&lqt_operand=783 

10. “Troubles du contrôle des impulsions,” Catalogue and Index of French Medical Sites. http://www.chu-rouen.fr/ssf/psy/troublesducontroledesimpulsions.html. 

 11. Kathleen Kete, The Beast in the Boudoir: Petkeeping in Nineteenth-Century France, University of California Press, 1994. 

12. Jean-Pierre Digard, “L’élevage industriel,” Les Français et leurs animaux : Ethnologie d’un phénomène de société, Fayard, Pluriel Ethnologie, p. 41.

Animal Hoarding and Other Similar Pathologies

Charles Danten

Collectors keep dozens, sometimes a hundred or a thousand animals in their homes, in filthy conditions. American scientist Gary Patronek has estimated that there are about two thousand animal collectors in the United States - a figure he says is far from the truth. (1)

The vast majority of hoarders are women, on average fifty-five years old, single, divorced, or widowed. The stereotype of the old cat lady is wrong as half of the collectors Patronek counted were employed, some in professions as mundane as teaching and real estate. Among them, Patronek even counted four veterinarians. 

Cats are the favorite victims of collectors, followed by dogs, birds, reptiles, small mammals (ferrets, rats, hamsters), horses, cows, goats, and sheep. Many of them have a real menagerie in their house and on their property.

In every home, there is an accumulation of miscellaneous items such as newspapers, laundry, books, and garbage cans. Some collectors meticulously preserve dead animals. Many others have sexual relations with their animals. (2)

Researchers liken this habit to obsessive-compulsive disorder. "There are far more similarities than differences between obsessive-compulsive disorder and animal collecting," notes researcher Gary Patronek, "the interaction between a living thing and a person gives it a level of intensity that does not exist with a pile of newspapers. (...) Collectors use these animals to fulfill their emotional needs, while denying those of their pets (...) Psychologists suspect a link between animal collecting and attachment disorders." (3) 

If the object of the passion varies, according to the inclinations and the means of each one, its origin is on the other hand the same: an unspecified psychological insufficiency. Thus, the collected object is more or less accessory, provided that the collector finds his fulfillment. 

According to scientists Maria Vaca-Guzman and Arnold Arluke, "collectors do not lack arguments and excuses to justify their mania and make it more socially acceptable. This is how they clear their name and protect their self-esteem:" (4)(5)(6)

The Good Samaritan Argument

Some will use the Good Samaritan argument, claiming that these animals would have died anyway, and that by adopting them they are saving them from certain death. In their logic, death is considered an unthinkable option, any other possibility, no matter how horrible, is considered preferable. In other words, the Good Samaritan absolves himself of blame by giving his obsession a noble purpose. The "rescuers" who collect wild or domestic animals in non-killing shelters fall into this category. 

The Love Argument

Many claim to love their animals, deeply, as much or more than their own children. Naming their animals after their children or being loved by their pets is the ultimate proof of their love, and that all is well in the best of worlds. Collectors consider their pets to be an integral part of the family. They say things like: 

We take good care of our pets, the proof is they are happy and they love us back (...) this is heaven for them (...) they play ball... they love it... they don't have mange and they love to be here... did you see how this dog flicks his tail? This dog wants to play ball. It's elephant man syndrome. Appearances are deceiving. It is not by things like this (conditions of captivity) that one should judge suffering. (7) 

Other Arguments of Denial

Some deny the facts or minimize their consequences. Others try to divert attention by pointing the finger at those who take them to task and by calling them names (ad hominem attacks); they look for scapegoats by saying for example: it is society's fault if animals are mistreated; it’s the breeders who produce too many animals; owners don’t have them neutered or are not sufficiently responsible for the animals under their thumb; some will plead ignorance, lack of know-how, good intentions, a physical or psychological handicap of some kind that prevents them from taking good care of the object of their devotion; the lack of intellectual freedom caused by a difficult life that pushes them to act in this way, against their will. Others confess to being under the influence of a mysterious force that the media calls "extreme love." (8) 

The most affected, and the most resistant, employ the full arsenal of excuses and justifications. Strategies of denial commonly evoked, to different degrees, by all animal owners, including animal activists who seem to be as unaware as everyone else that sometimes it can be cruel to be kind. (9)

***

This psychological profile carries over to those who are fixated on money, accolades, knowledge, and ideas; fraudsters, corporations, and investors who accumulate money for no other reason than to enrich themselves; nations who hoard information, nuclear warheads, and soldiers; institutions and intellectuals who accumulate books endlessly in private or public libraries; breeders who herd millions of animals into unsanitary, unspeakably cruel factory farms, and authorities who hoard children in factory schools to be indoctrinated into the logic of consumerism are also unaware collectors. 

« Hoarding," in the broadest sense, a generic term which can be applied to all neurotic forms of accumulation, is an escape, a means like any other to ease the tensions inherent to the human condition. Pollution and destruction of biodiversity, moral decay, gender dystopia, race-mixing, multiculturalism are the equivalent on a planetary scale of the filthy conditions typical of animal collectors' houses. 

According to this version of things, the current pet craze is a hidden form of collective hoarding.

References

1. Gary J. Patronek, "Hoarding of animals: An Under-estimated Public Health Problem in a Difficult to Study Population," Public Health Reports, 114 : 81-87, 1999.

2. Ibid. 

3. Randy Frost, "People who hoard animals," Psychiatric Times, 2006. 

4. Maria Vaca-Guzman and Arnold Arluke, "Normalizing passive cruelty: The excuses and justifications of animal hoarders,"  Anthro-zoös, 18(4), 2005.

5. Lynn Tryba, "Trash menagerie. The disturbing world of animal hoarding," Psychology today, 2002.

6. Maria Vaca-Guzman and Arnold Arluke, Article cited.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Patrick West, Conspicuous Compassion. Why Sometimes, it Really Is Cruel to be Kind, Civitas, 2004. 

“Furry Babies” Are Lousy Baby Substitutes

When a man is penalized for honesty, he learns to lie

Criss Jami, Salomé

  

During the Renaissance, at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, humankind underwent a “mutation of sensitivities.” This would eventually lead, in the 19^th century, to an important change in the animal condition. A passion for animals, which had previously been limited for the most part to the lords, would be propagated throughout the rising classes of the bourgeoisie, making its way into the hearts of average people. (1)

This change in the animal condition corresponded to mankind’s efforts to civilize and moralize the general population, a slow process of taming our impulses. (2) Before this crucial step in our spiritual and moral evolution, manifest violence was widespread throughout all social strata, both towards humans and animals. Slavery was considered natural and legitimate; animals, the poor, the insane, blacks, women, and children were generally treated as chattel or cannon fodder. Men all carried knives in their belts and did not hesitate to draw them at the slightest dispute. “Fear reigned everywhere; one had to be on guard all the time,” writes the magisterial, historian, and sociologist Norbert Elias. (3) Food animals were butchered in the middle of the street in horrible conditions. Pitting dogs against bulls or bears was a fairly common pastime for both rich and poor. It was not rare to see an annoyed coachman beat his exhausted horse to death when it refused to advance. (4) It was thus necessary to find ways to heal the evil that was threatening order and eating away at society’s very base.

Animals as Saviors 

For the Christian Church of that period, to love animals as did the saints St. Francis of Assisi and St. Cuthbert was a way “to establish the pure reign of charity among men,” notes French sociologist Éric Baratay. The idea was to eradicate “the taste for blood and cruelty, to improve Man for his brothers and thus to protect humanity itself.” (5) 

Because mistreatment of animals became a sign of poor cha-racter and was then considered a bad example for children, it was believed that the opposite — affectionate contact with pets — would help mankind free itself from its archaic cruelty and insensitivity. According to this evolutionary strategy, as evolutionary biologist Kevin MacDonald would put it, loving animals means loving human beings, and not loving animals is almost proof of inhumanity. It was Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason who said, “Everything of cruelty to animals is a violation of moral duty.” (6)

It has long since been forgotten, but humane societies like the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), which came about in the 19th century in most Western countries, were originally founded mostly to put an end to violence towards people — the link between cruelty to animals and cruelty to humans being long established. (7) 

Even the famous French “Gramont” law from 1850, which condemned public mistreatment of domestic animals, had among its aims an anthropocentric one: to improve mankind. (8) This law had equivalents in all Western countries. For example, in 1820, abuse of livestock and “blood sports” were prohibited in several American states. An 1866 New York law, which later became a model for all anti-cruelty laws in America, made it a misdemeanor to maliciously hurt or kill any domestic animal. (9)

The universal idea that affection for animals makes us more human takes on various forms across different cultures, but it is recognizably part of the founding credos of numerous societies. It has become popular wisdom, and we shouldn’t underestimate its power over us. (10)

 

Animal as Doctors

Our appreciation of animals is not based solely on the notion that they make us better human beings; it is also that they add a little spice to our often sad and fastidious lives. We interpret this as a contribution to our physical and mental health, believing that they heal us from various threats to our wellbeing — inactivity, violence, anxiety, stress, solitude, boredom, depression, cancer, and mental illness, to name but a few.

This symbiotic concept, which suggests that people’s physical, moral, and psychological ills may be cured by the reassuring presence of animals, has become known as “zootherapy” or “animal-assisted-therapy” as it is now called, a term “that can refer to institutionalized therapy sessions led by health professionals or another such intermediary as well as simply having an animal at home. The word ‘zootherapy’ is thus a generic term designating the positive impact of animals on people,” (11) and to give you the full story, I will add the impact of people on animals, since it is generally agreed that this form of affection is as good for them as it is for us. 

American Jewish psychiatrist Boris Levinson, who is conside-red the modern day father of this concept, summarized the im-portance that animals could have in people’s lives in several beacon articles published in the sixties and seventies. (12) According to Levinson, who advocated sex with animals, an emotional relationship with an animal is in itself a physiological intervention comparable to a drug. Since the publication of his writings, this line of thinking has become so mainstream that zootherapy is now a modern institution, with many such interventions being carried out as official treatments. They are “administered” by individuals and by organizations, all of whom aggressively promote the perceived benefits of companion animals. 

University of Concordia psychology professor Theresa Bianco, for example, cannot say enough good things about pet therapy: 

There is a substantial body of research showing that people of all ages derive a multitude of psychosocial and health bene-fits from their involvement with pets. […] Moreover, these benefits are not limited to pet ownership, but also extend to therapeutic interventions involving a variety of animal species. In some instances, the mere presence of the animal is sufficient to reduce anxiety. (13)

American veterinarian Marty Becker summed up the vital role animals play in people’s lives at a symposium on animal well-ness: 

Most important, veterinary medicine is embracing the bond as a vital force for not just happy, healthy pets… but happy, healthy people as well. (14)

The present height of the pet phenomenon is thus closely linked to the perceived benefits of animals on people, and of people on animals. Allow me to emphasize the word “perceived,” because while public and manifest mistreatment of animals was indeed prohibited starting in the 19th century, the use of animals for recreative, therapeutic, and spiritual purposes has untold consequences, not only on animals and nature but also on humanity.

Extract from The Globo Trickster Book

www.amazon.ca/dp/B0BQ91T2K9

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Is a plant-based diet the future of humanity?

By Charles Danten

Our friends from the Globalist community would like to abolish animal-based diets for health and environmental reasons. But before we jump the gun, let’s first make sure that this radical meat-to-tofu flip-flop is fully justified. The reader can decide at the very end whether or not he still wants to be a vegetarian or to become one. 

https://www.eurocanadians.ca/2022/01/is-egetarianism-the-future-of-humanity.html

 

Animals are the shadow of the human saga

Charles Danten

The morphological and psychological changes that domesticated animals have undergone in a relatively short time period to become what they are today are not without strange resemblance to those we have undergone across our own recent evolution. The techniques of domestication – confinement, food deprivation, physical and mental castration, selection for docility, incest, and coercion – were also used to domesticate humans. It could be said that the animal condition is actually an unconscious transposition of the human condition; accordingly, my book, Slaves of Our Affection. The Myth of the Happy Pet, can be considered an allegory, or a metaphor, of the human condition. Animals are indeed the shadow of the human saga. Following are several examples along these lines.

Confinement and food deprivation

To domesticate some of the bigger or more dangerous species like wolves, the size and character of the individuals had to be acted upon. One of the techniques used was food deprivation and confinement. Recent studies have shown that food quality and conditions of captivity have an impact on the weight of offspring at birth, on their vitality, and on longevity. According to specialists, these remarkable physiological changes are attributable to the stress linked to captivity and to hormonal disturbances associated with a physically and psychologically abnormal state of dependence. The increased frequency of disease and the decrease of mobility and general activity also have a strong impact on the size and vigor of the newborn. 

Modern-day breeders of Pot-bellied Vietnamese pigs, for example, are quite familiar with the effects of a lack of exercise and nutritional deprivation on animals. Some do not hesitate to keep theirs hungry and in miniscule cages to hinder growth. (17) These methods have actually been known for a very long time and have even been applied to humans. As such, two thousand years ago, the Greeks closed up their children in chests, called gloottokoma, made for this purpose. The Romans underfed their children with the same goal in mind. (18) 

After a few generations of this treatment, the facial bones are flattened and saggy, the jaw is shorter, and the teeth, smaller. Chewing is done less efficiently. Limbs are also shorter, and the biomechanics of the body are transformed. Fatty tissues are more abundant and musculature is less developed. At archaeological sites, size is one of the criteria used by anthropologists to identify animals as either domesticated or at least as no longer having lived in their natural habitat. (19)(20)(21)

Food deprivation or an inadequate diet also has a marked effect on sexuality. In nature, the oestrogen cycle depends on food availability. In order to adapt to a chronic lack of nourishment and a short life expectancy, a captive animal reproduces more quickly. It goes from having one heat cycle per year, like wolves, to having two or three depending on the pressure of selection being exerted. (22) It is also sexually precocious. A female dog can come into heat at five or six months of age, while a wolf is only mature at two years. Promiscuity and devious sexual behaviour is the norm in captivity, whereas it is nearly absent in most species living in their ecosystem. (23)(24)(25)

As noted by Konrad Lorenz, like other domesticated animals, humans no longer subjected to natural selection also accumulate irregularities and malformations, which would otherwise be quickly eliminated. (26) In Greece and Turkey for instance, paleopathologists have uncovered thousands of deformed human skeletons dating back to the beginning of sedentary life and agriculture, which show the unmistakable signs of nutritional disease and stunted growth. The hallmark of domestication is a genetic drift that cumulates into marked decadence. (27)

Castration

In addition to acting on the size of animals by food deprivation and confinement, we have sought to calm the natural ardours of more aggressive species and to inhibit unbridled sexual instincts. Castration has been the favoured method of doing so since the beginning of domestication. In the New World, only a few centuries ago, castration was also used to calm those black slaves who tended to revolt or escape a little too often. Theirs is a lesser-known story than that of the eunuchs, or castrated men, in China, Greece, Persia, and ancient Rome. Eunuchs were charged with protecting the harem and some became the irreplaceable confidants of the lords. In the 16th century Chinese imperial court, more than 20,000 eunuchs served as functionaries, guards, messengers, and servants. Finally, there was a time of partiality to castrated choral singers. Farinelli (1705-1782) was among these; he had a brilliant singing career that put him at the personal service of Spain’s Philippe V. The king, who was afflicted with chronic melancholy, found relief only in listening to the miraculous voice of Farinelli, one of the world’s best-known human songbirds. (28)

Selection for docility

While neutering has always been the favoured method of making animals tamer and more docile, it has its limitations: for obvious reasons, you cannot sterilize animals you intend to breed. So, creating animals that were more subdued and manageable also required selecting for docility. As I mentioned earlier, animals with the most pronounced juvenile characteristics were also the most attaching and the most moving; they were the ones that received the most mercy. In other words, the most docile and submissive animals, those that obeyed the most, that let themselves be picked up or taken along, were those which had the best chance of being kept and bred. A recent study has shown that wild foxes raised for fur and selected for their docility towards man will behave like dogs within only twenty generations or so. They seek out human company more and more, and wag their tails. Physically, they shed for longer periods, their ears become floppy, their tails straighten, and their coats change color. The persistence into adulthood of juvenile physical traits and infantile behavior constitutes one of the most striking features of the domestic animal. An adult dog demonstrates behaviors typical of a wolf cub: he seeks frequent attention, he likes to play, he barks, he wiggles, and he crawls submissively. Like a child, he is extremely dependent and, consequently, easily bored. The dog is an eternal adolescent, impetuous and extravagant, and this is probably what makes him so endearing. We would feel very differently about dogs if they outgrew these qualities and acquired social maturity. (29)

It is worth noting that totally dependent animals, whose owners make them lead an almost vegetative existence with limited or no contact with other members of their species, often do not show any sexual impulses; when they do, the impulses are not pronounced or are abnormal and directed towards their adopted master. Some hyper-domesticated males do not raise their leg to urinate and some females do not go into heat, if they do at all, before two or three years of age. 

The brain of a captive animal is smaller than that of his wild counterpart and his senses are much less sharp. Dependence is associated with a degeneration of sensorial faculties. Because domestic animals live less intense lives than wild animals, their senses of smell, sight, hearing, taste, and touch are less solicited; as a result, they become dulled. (30)

In human beings, the shift from nature to culture has favored a form of evolution, which caused some profound changes in our morphology and in our psychology. Man’s flat face, high domed skull and large brain, reduced pelt, large eyes, and small teeth are all infant features that we retain into adulthood. (31) Additionally, the civilization process has resulted in a tightly woven network of social interdependency that is directly related to an increase in docility and submissive behavior. (32) In our present consumer world, adults, like children, are extremely sensitive to a lack of attention. Unless they are constantly entertained and encouraged, they are prone to anxiety, boredom, and depression. 

Inbreeding

Once an animal is smaller, docile and under control, it can be transformed, molded, and sculpted like a garden plant, according to the needs and desires of its creator. The preferred way to do so is by inbreeding.

By mating brothers and sisters, fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, the desired traits are more quickly manifested – after only a few generations – in higher and higher numbers of the offspring. These traits eventually become fixed in the genes and reproduce themselves with a predictable regularity. Such inbreeding is the cornerstone of domestication. The transformation of a species is possible thanks only to animal incest. (33)

Even in humankind, incest has been used across history to maintain “purity.” Kings, for example, had sex freely with their children. Nobles married kin. In Jewish and Arab communities that practice endogamy, the gene pool becomes so limited that health problems begin to occur more frequently, forcing its members to actively seek new genes outside the community. Today, with few exceptions, we no longer marry next of kin - too dangerous - but we do tend to assemble and marry with likeminded people, a kind of positive “incest,” which leads to cultural, racial, and ethnic preservation.

Coercion

The last stage of the domestication process is training. A domesticated animal must learn at least to behave in a controlled manner, and often to obey commands as well. This is achieved through use of positive and/or negative conditioning: 

– Positive conditioning, aka the carrot: a subject is rewarded with some form of reward, such as praise, petting, games, or food, when it performs a desired behavior. 

– Negative conditioning: a subject is punished through the removal of a reward. 

– Positive punishment, aka the whip: a subject may be beaten with a leash, momentarily choked with a collar, slapped on the head, etc.

In general, farm animals are trained using the third method exclusively. In dogs, methods two and three are often used alternatingly. For those who are quite adept at the art of domination, methods one and two are preferred, for reasons of image, as in the case of animal lovers.

The carrot is also popular for controlling people, especially in older democracies where the whipis used most often on those who do not respond to the softer means of coercion.