Why Do We Grieve Our Pets Yet Harm Other Animals?

It is not unusual for people to form profoundly deep attachments to their pets, mostly their dogs and cats. Yet, paradoxically, people also have an equally deep capacity to treat animals in abhorrently cruel ways. But more on that later.

I have no hard data on the matter, but based on personal as well as several decades of clinical experience with a vast range of individuals, I personally believe that people who have no interest or ability to bond with animals are lacking some vital emotional equipment. Even people on the ASD spectrum who have severe interpersonal deficits often have very meaningful attachments to their pets.

What’s more, it is not unusual for people to deeply grieve and mourn the loss of a beloved dog or cat—in some cases even more intensely than they grieve the loss of human family members. This is because grief is the flipside of love. The more we love someone, the more we grieve and mourn losing them. This is not to be interpreted as meaning people love their pets more than their family members and other loved human companions, but rather the type of love and the unique connection we form with our furry family is different but can be as equally profound.

In my view, this is mostly due to the way we relate to our pets that allows us to cultivate especially strong connections that are not based on language and social conduct. When relating to our pets, we receive no complaints, criticisms, directives, or messages of disapproval we don’t deserve. What we do receive is joyful companionship, unconditional love, affection, and playfulness. Also, especially with dogs, we are the center of our pet’s emotional life. But make no mistake. Our fine, furry feline family members are also acutely emotional and possess keen intelligence. As do all mammals, particularly ones that have coexisted and coevolved with human civilization for millennia (e.g., dogs, cats, and horses—to name only a few).

But perhaps one of the most important reasons we form such profoundly deep and loving bonds with our pets is because of how emotional and sensory our relationships with them are. Beyond talking to them in a distinctly non-human, often silly style of speaking, we touch and stroke, kiss and nuzzle, hold and cuddle, and curl up and often sleep with our dogs and cats. Thus the way we relate to our pets bypasses most of the mental process of cognition (i.e., language, interpretation, analytical and critical thinking, expectations of symmetrical reciprocity, etc.). This allows animal-human relationships to be based almost entirely on warm, loving feelings and soothing and pleasant sensations rather than words and strictly human behavior.

In essence, the mutually pleasing, tactile, sensory, and physical way we relate to our pets bypasses thinking, interpreting, analyzing, and judging, and beams straight into the soul of our emotional experience—much like parenting a baby or young child fosters deep and enduring love for one’s child(ren). Only, while it is said that “parenting is all fun and no joy,” being the guardian of a pet usually provides one with a great deal of both fun and joy.

In addition, with our pets, we have unconditionally accepting, basically conflict-free relationships with no worries about miscommunication, shame, embarrassment, humiliation, disappointment, or messages of disapproval. Thus, we are rarely disappointed by our pets for failing to meet our social expectations, or for treating us unkindly or selfishly, or for speaking to us harshly, dishonestly, or disapprovingly. Moreover, we don’t need to worry about disappointing our pets or failing to live up to their expectations as long as we care for them and treat them kindly.

Consequently, this type of non-intellectual, almost purely emotional and sensory connection, coupled with the fact that our pets are entirely dependent on us for their safety and security, results in a “soul-deep“ intimacy that can transcend even some of our most important human relationships. Hence the heart-wrenching and devastating sense of loss we can suffer upon the death of a most beloved pet.

Given this common, human capacity to form such profound attachments to other animals, isn’t it ironic that we still torture, brutalize and kill many of them on a literally industrial scale? Because it’s not just dogs and cats that have highly evolved mammalian cerebral cortices that endow them with a keen intellect and rich emotional lives; it is a feature of all mammals. (And likely all sentient beings including many birds, octopus, squid, and cuttlefish). In fact, all mammals have very similar neural architecture including the brain stem, limbic-thalamic system, and the most recently evolved cerebral cortex or “thinking cap.” (The word “cortex“ derives from the Greek for ”bark,” as in that which wraps around a tree; an outer layer.) It is the cerebral cortex that gives rise to perception, cognition, and the conscious experiences called phenomenology. And it is almost a certainty that all mammals have myriad conscious experiences that parallel human phenomenology due to the shared neural structures we have.

Indeed, it is well known that most mammals bond with and care for their young, and feel a great range of emotions including fear, grief, anger, love, joy, and even humor. Additionally, many mammals and birds are adept problem solvers, use tools, remember the past, and appear to have a concept of the future. Some have even been shown to mourn their dead, especially elephants.

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Yet we nevertheless treat many other mammals in the most inhumane and savage ways imaginable. Many highly evolved and sentient animals are born in captivity, separated from their mothers, imprisoned, fattened up, and then grotesquely slaughtered to ostensibly feed the hungry masses. This, despite the fact that it is well known that the amount of food given to an animal, so that it can subsequently be slaughtered and eaten by humans, is far greater than the amount of food that can be harvested from a slaughtered animal. What’s more, the ecological and environmental costs of raising and “harvesting“ animals for food are huge. In addition, ethical and environmental issues aside, animal meat is proving to be an increasingly unhealthy staple of the American diet.

Now I am not decrying people eating meat to satisfy their nutritional needs, especially for complete proteins. Indeed, it is believed that when humans shifted away from a largely plant-based diet to one that included animal tissue, our brains underwent a massive expansion allowing our current “human“ intelligence to arise. What troubles me personally is the vast scale of industrial animal farming and the disproportionate amount of animal products most Americans eat. And of course, I understand the economics; it is much more expensive to raise animals humanely as a source of food (i.e., free-range, hormone- and antibiotic-free) than wholesale animal farming. But it is also far less barbaric and healthier, too.

Some vegans have a saying that reflects the moral center of their nutritional choices, “Nothing with a face or anything that came from something with a face.“ While I agree with the fundamental aspect of this creed, I personally feel it is a bit too restrictive. For example, honey comes from bees and bees have faces. But it does not seem to me to be cruel or exploitative for humans to eat honey. In fact, the symbiotic relationship between bees and humans is vital for human agriculture.

So, rather than invoke the vegan's motto I prefer to use what I call, “The cortical criterion.“ This means eschewing eating an animal that has a cerebral cortex because, as mentioned above, it is the mammalian cerebral cortex that endows creatures with sentience, and thus complex emotional, intellectual, and social lives.

We now live during an era in which it is possible to derive the full spectrum of macro and micronutrients from much more humane, plant-based sources. This is seen by many as a manner of relating to nutrition that is not only far more ethical and medically sensible but also ecologically attuned. Unfortunately, there will always be people who will treat other highly evolved mammals unconscionably. They will happily kill them simply for amusement or sport, torture them for entertainment, and make them suffer for pure sadistic pleasure. But the slaughter of 40 million cattle, 125 million pigs, and 7.5 million sheep in (merely) America every year strikes me as industrialized barbarism on a shocking scale.

As a final comment, I’d be the first to admit there is a powerful draw towards eating animal flesh that is written into our DNA. And I myself would kill and eat an animal without much hesitation, despite my grave misgivings, if my life depended on it. But given the amazing array of plant-based food choices many people now have, it seems to me that fighting our more primitive and violent impulses would serve us, our society, and the environment very well, as well as alleviate a vast amount of animal suffering. Suffering that we would do almost anything to save ourselves and our pets from, right?

Remember: Think well, Act well, Feel well, Be well!

Copyright 2021 Clifford N. Lazarus, Ph.D. This post is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional assistance or personal behavioral health treatment by a qualified clinician.