30: The rise of dangerously lax pet ownership
On killing healthy dogs, the behavioral euthanasia "trend," and shirked responsibility
If you’re a Twitter user, you’ve probably come across this tweet over the course of the past two weeks:
As I am writing this, the tweet has been retweeted 4,143 times and elicited 2,965 replies… all while garnering not even 1,000 likes. That, my friends, is the sign of online controversy. Indeed, the replies consist of countless biting responses that handily ratio the original tweet, their 3,000-8,000 likes dwarfing the writer’s own. Without me even telling you anything about the topic, it’s clear that the tides of public opinion are not with Madeline Bilis, author of the above tweet and the Slate article that pushed me to write this week.
While I encourage you to read Madeline Bilis’s article “When Bonnie Came Home” and draw your own conclusions, I understand that not everyone will. I’ll give you a TLDR: Bilis adopted a “pandemic dog” with unresolved trauma that manifested in fear-driven aggression and biting, made an attempt to train Bonnie over the course of the six months she owned her, and ultimately chose to put Bonnie down (despite her being completely healthy) out of concern for the safety of others and for Bonnie’s own quality of life. You may already be wondering how ending a dog’s life is an improvement upon their quality of life. I—and many others—wondered the same to varying degrees of outrage.
Granted, this is a nuanced story, and I think it’s important to acknowledge that. Bilis suggested that she was unaware of Bonnie’s history with biting at the point of adoption, writing, “Almost nobody willingly adopts a biting dog, and concealing a history of aggressive behavior is likely how I ended up with mine.” This suggests negligence on the part of Bonnie’s animal shelter: a dog with an intense history of biting like Bonnie should never have been paired with a novice owner like Bilis—not without disclosing her history or emotional trauma, at least. Beyond this, Bilis made reference to the fact that she had researched dog training and shared that she hired a trainer that came over to work with Bonnie at least two times (no further trainer interactions are mentioned in the article) on positive reinforcement training and desensitization to triggers. In short, Bilis appears to have made an effort to help Bonnie adjust, and when that wasn’t working, she did make unsuccessful attempts to rehome her. Finally, Bonnie is said to have bitten humans more than seven times (Bilis vaguely adds that “that number would grow” without specifying by how much) and at least two of those bites drew blood. Regardless of how you feel about behavioral euthanasia, or putting a dog down due to behavioral issues despite it being fully healthy, it is worth noting that Bonnie most definitely had deeply-ingrained trauma that would be difficult to resolve—and that trauma was causing her to behave in a way that made Bilis and those around her feel unsafe.
Now that I’ve been charitable, I’m going to discuss what continues to disturb me and so many others. Bonnie’s history of biting and trauma may have gone undisclosed at the point of adoption, but Bilis knowingly adopted a six-year-old dog from a shelter. That in and of itself should tell any dog owner something: when an older dog is up for adoption, there is a large chance that it has very serious behavioral or health issues. Beyond that, it is common knowledge that older dogs are more difficult to train because they’ve been raised in vastly different living conditions with vastly different owners. This difficulty is obviously compounded if a dog is traumatized. Any potential dog owner who had done the literal bare minimum of research on adoption would see a six-year-old dog as a challenging adoptee and act accordingly, thoroughly considering whether or not they could give them the support they needed to adjust to a new home. This is especially the case for a novice pet owner.
As such, my patience with Bilis was thin from the jump. I lost even more sympathy when I read that Bilis moved Bonnie into her apartment in New York City. It’s not rocket science to intuit that it would be difficult for any dog to live in New York City given the city’s constant overstimulation, lack of indoor living space, and sparse amounts of accessible green space. Again, given Bonnie’s status as an older dog and her unresolved trauma, the animal shelter and Bilis should have known that life in an apartment in the most populous city in the United States would be the farthest thing from ideal for her wellbeing. Bilis writes, “Vacuums, along with almost everything else in my apartment and outside of it, terrified Bonnie.” No sh*t! Apartment life in New York City would be an adjustment for any dog. Bilis chooses to give Bonnie anxiety medication fairly early on in her time with her (which in itself is an interesting choice, though I am not knowledgeable enough on the topic to weigh in on this). Yet, “Bonnie regressed, lunging at perceived threats on the street, like joggers, other dogs, and squealing kids.” Wow—you’re telling me anti-anxiety medication didn’t overcome the highly overstimulating environment you’re putting this terribly frightened dog into day after day and magically resolve six years of unaddressed trauma? But it’s definitely the dog’s fault she’s been brought into this unsustainable situation. Bilis eventually provides the lukewarm take that “maybe city life didn’t agree with her.” Understatement of the century.
Like I mentioned earlier, I will be fair to Bilis in that she did attempt to make inroads with Bonnie’s training. I do find it tellingly naïve that one of the two times Bilis mentions her own training efforts, she says, “I was already familiar with these training methods from a MasterClass I’d seen, in which a celebrity dog trainer assures new pet owners he can help their dogs overcome things like accidents in the house, excessive barking, and digging in the yard.” But it appears she did try to learn from the trainer she mentioned twice and practiced desensitization tactics daily, suggesting a sense of financial and personal investment in Bonnie’s recovery. But what bothers me most, on top of all of the previously outlined issues, is that Bilis seemingly expected Bonnie’s lifetime of trauma to go away in a matter of months. Recall that Bonnie was six years old. What is most damning is that Bilis decided that six years of unresolved, life-altering trauma deserved only six months of training. That after six months of training a six-year-old dog who was, by Bilis’s own admittance, suffering because she “never was able to anticipate what would set her off, and there was no way to control her environment on the streets of New York,” Bonnie’s death was her only choice because of lack of rehoming options. Regardless of Bilis’s efforts with training, these wildly unrealistic expectations for Bonnie’s recovery time and her unwillingness to provide her the time she needed point to Bilis’s lack of preparedness as a pet owner. But no matter how Bilis frames the story to highlight her own pain, she didn’t pay for her own unpreparedness. Bonnie did—with her life.
I was especially shaken by the way Bilis framed her ultimate decision:
In a comfortable and loving home, Bonnie was always on the defense, even in the calmest of situations. When it came down to it, her quality of life was poor. I couldn’t envision her feeling safe in any situation, no matter how rural the home, no matter how many triggers were eliminated. To prevent her from harming herself or anyone else again, I chose behavioral euthanasia.
Yes, all of this was said a few paragraphs after the admittances that Bilis’s home was not comfortable or calm for Bonnie. It’s so strange to me that Bilis outright says that Bonnie’s quality of life is poor without any acknowledgment of her own role in creating that reality. And what puts me over the edge is Bilis’s inability to “envision [Bonnie] feeling safe in any situation.” This not only confirms that Bilis never created a safe situation for Bonnie, but it also is just so… selfish? Bonnie never had the chance to experience a rural home free from triggers, but just because Bilis can’t look beyond her own living situation with Bonnie, she decides Bonnie isn’t worthy of that chance. Yes, pet owners are the ultimate arbiters of life and death for their pets, but Bilis brings this home in such a self-serving way that it makes my skin crawl. This sensation grows as she goes on to outline Bonnie’s fear in her final days. Here’s a sampling:
Bonnie’s last day came sooner than expected. On a quiet Sunday morning while I pet her on the floor, she inexplicably snapped at my face, though her mouth clamped down hard around my boyfriend’s forearm instead of my cheek. When he jumped up, she held on, piercing deep wounds in his arm and a hole in his sweatshirt. She scampered away from us afterward, head down, trembling.
In the Uber, Bonnie, who preferred to sit in my lap during car rides, looked out the window sweetly unaware. […] When we arrived, Bonnie started trembling again.
As he shut the door [in the animal care center] behind me, I heard Bonnie whine, a protest to being separated from me.
Bilis makes the end of the article about her—the difficulty of her decision, the shame she felt in making it. As such, I can only assume she included these heart-wrenching details to make us sympathize with her all the more and understand the weight of the decision she made. But it had the opposite effect on me and so many others. This haunting imagery of a dog suffering, clearly in need of help and trying its best to simultaneously love its owner and protect itself in a situation where it consistently felt unsafe… it makes the story’s end feel so much less inevitable than Bilis paints it out to be. That’s pointed out all the more by her final paragraph, in which she leaves us with an image of her parents’ dog bounding around their Massachusetts backyard:
Lady was a healthy dog. Clearly, Bonnie was not. I couldn’t possibly picture her acting so carefree. I miss Bonnie dearly—and desperately wish I could’ve watched her dart around my parents’ backyard—but there’s solace in knowing she isn’t afraid anymore.
Bonnie was a healthy dog. Bonnie could have darted around Bilis’s parents’ backyard—maybe that could have helped her in her recovery—or even a new family’s backyard if Bilis spent more than six months to try to “fix” a six-year-old dog. Just because Bilis couldn’t picture Bonnie acting carefree doesn’t mean that it wasn’t possible. Bilis ensured that outcome wasn’t possible—not Bonnie. The self-serving suggestion that Bonnie’s untimely end was inevitable is what worries me most, pointing to a societal trend toward increasingly lax pet ownership marked by entitlement.
Believe it or not, Bonnie is not the only dog currently at the center of public outcry for being euthanized while healthy. This next case is much less nuanced—and much, much worse. Anti-mask, anti-vax, anti-birth control YouTube mommy vlogger (can you tell I have some thoughts and feelings?) Nikki Phillippi and her husband Dan posted a video wherein they detail their decision to put down their nine-year-old dog, Bowser, in light of him “biting” their baby. Please don’t watch this video; they don’t deserve your views. Watch Graysons Projects or Smokey Glow recap and comment on the video instead. Anyway, they fully raised Bowser and noted that he struggled with aggression and trauma ever since being attacked as a puppy, but they make no mention of any training or treatment measures put into place over the nine years they “cared” for him. This is a choice given that Nikki has millions of followers and ostensibly makes a comfortable living from YouTube. They had the financial ability to provide him with the help he needed if they were not willing to train him themselves. Bowser was allowed to act aggressively toward and injure other dogs for nine years without any intervention from the Phillippis other than fully keeping him inside.
They never addressed his food aggression or helped their toddler son to understand the dog’s boundaries, putting both the dog and the child in an unsustainable situation. They even allowed their child to injure Bowser’s ear so badly that it “ballooned up” and it “took a month for it to go down.” “Gentle giant” Bowser didn’t react in this initial situation, but when he “bit” the child later on as the boy tried to take food from him, the Phillippis finally acted. Treating this situation as inevitable—separate from their lack of training or treatment, boundary-setting, and overall effort in child/dog-rearing—they decided the incident was reason enough to put Bowser down. They also suggested euthanizing him was a convenient “blessing” because they were moving soon and Bowser would be “difficult” to move because of his “special needs.” The aforementioned trauma they never addressed was becoming an ~inconvenience~ for them—what a bummer :( Even more upsetting: note that they describe this “biting” incident as something that “wasn’t bad” and left “just a little mark on [the toddler’s] face.” Compare that to the extent to which their son injured Bowser in the past. And be sure to note the fact that they staged an incredibly tone-deaf pre-death social media photoshoot with the baby and Bowser post-“bite,” side by side on the dog’s last day of life. But yes, Bowser seems incredibly out of control in the photo and all of this is very much his fault. Bowser and the child weren’t let down at all by the Phillippis throughout their time together. Pained. Sarcasm. Heavily. Implied.
This strangely public trend toward behavioral euthanasia and the discourse that has accompanied it seem to underlie a worrisome shift in the way we view pet ownership. Unprepared pet owners seem increasingly emboldened (either consciously or subconsciously) to prematurely play master of their pets’ fates when faced with the issues they themselves helped to create. They commit to being responsible for a helpless being’s life in the adoption process, but they fail to consider what that level of responsibility might entail—or whether they would be a good owner for that or any pet. There seems to have been some kind of normalization of not adequately preparing to care for pets and considering oneself to inherently be a fit owner regardless of experience, effort, research, living situations, financial situations, and personal outlooks. I think it’s important that the self-serving rhetoric people like Bilis and the Phillippis employ isn’t normalized. We must question it and hold ourselves to a higher standard of care for the animals be bring into our lives.
Knowingly committing oneself to care for another life should be a serious matter—even if the life belongs to an animal. It’s a no-brainer why titles like “dog mom” and “cat dad” exist: pet ownership is akin to parenting. Animals are essentially wholly dependent on their “pet parents” for safety, food, shelter, space, exercise, and so on. Just like with birthing or adopting a child, pet owners need to prepare for their pets to deal with health issues, behavioral issues, or even special needs. If pet owners are unwilling to properly prepare for the challenges that come with supporting another life until its end, they should not take ownership of that life. I don’t think anyone would argue against that. But it seems that so many people do argue against it in practice, as is seen in the discussions surrounding controversial euthanizations of healthy pets like Bonnie and Bowser.
I am not saying that helping a dog recover from trauma or deal with biting and aggression issues is easy, and I am not saying there is no case for behavioral euthanasia. In fact, a childhood friend and a cousin of mine were so badly bitten by dogs that were not their own that they had to have stitches or plastic surgery to repair the damage done to their faces. In these serious situations that required intense medical attention, the case for behavioral euthanasia made sense, and one of the dogs was indeed put down after the attack. Though, it is worth noting that the fallout I witnessed in these situations resulted from the same course of inadequate training and unaddressed trauma, leading to the dogs answering for their masters’ mistakes.
What I am saying is that humans—pet owners—have agency that their dogs do not. Humans can choose to bring traumatized dogs into situations that further exacerbate their trauma, to never even attempt to help them alleviate that trauma, or to decide that their efforts toward helping them heal have taken too long or are too burdensome. Dogs have no choice in the matter; they are completely at their owners’ will. As such, I don’t think it’s too much to ask a potential pet owner to push back against the widely-held belief that anyone can and should be a pet owner. Our uncritical promotion of pet ownership for all has allowed people to decouple the cuteness and fun pets bring from the challenges they pose as dependent beings in need of intense, committed care even in times of health. We think about the value pets will bring to our lives without questioning whether we’re prepared to give them a life of value in return. Ultimately, framing pet ownership in this self-centered and entitled way will manifest itself in unpreparedness for the reality of pet ownership and continue to precipitate situations like the two detailed above. These situations are worst case scenarios but real scenarios nonetheless, and they resulted in unnecessary death as well as pain—both for the owners and their now-deceased pets.
I’m at a stage of life where I’m dying to adopt a dog. I have a dog-friendly apartment with plenty of space. I live near plentiful walking paths, lakes, and green space. I have a steady job with an income sufficient to support a pet’s life. I work from home, so I would actually be around every day to train the dog and respond to its needs. Finally, I grew up learning from my extremely talented dog trainer of a mother, who taught our sheltie Penny to be housebroken, sit, stay, roll over, shake hands, play dead, flip treats off her nose and into her mouth, play hide and seek, and go anywhere off-leash with us—from hiking mountains to walking busy streetside sidewalks—without running away or interacting with other dogs. I can genuinely say I’ve never met a better trained dog in my life, and I benefited so much from watching my mom work with her day after day. Yet, even with seemingly so many of the necessary components in place, stories like the ones above make me (rightfully!) reconsider whether or not I am truly prepared for the worst. For a dog that is difficult to train, that might be or become traumatized, that might deal with forms of aggression, that has or may develop expensive and stress-inducing health issues. It all gives me great pause. And it should. I think we should all start acknowledging that it’s okay—and even preferable!—to look for our blind spots, for the things that scare us about providing for another living thing. To acknowledge that we might not be ready or fit to take on all that pet ownership requires. The chances are that these situations will arise, and we will need to be prepared for them and honor our commitment to seeing things through.
The situations that led to Bonnie and Bowser’s deaths weren’t inevitable. They were a byproduct of a dangerously self-serving societal view of pet ownership as something that humans are entitled to regardless of their preparation and effort. This unsustainable mindset puts human needs before the needs of the helpless animals we’re meant to care for, ultimately precipitating the worst-case scenarios we’ve discussed above. We all need to check in with ourselves and interrogate whether our desire to care for a pet extends beyond the value the pet will bring to our lives. Have we made an effort to put everything in place in order to provide the dog with a life of value? Or are we forcing the dog to adapt to a life that will not serve it well solely for our own enjoyment? Are we prepared to do everything we can to ensure this dog is socialized and well-adjusted when among people and other animals? Will we make investments of both time and money to address issues in this area as well as other unseen issues with health or behavior that may arise? Are we truly responsible enough to take on the caring for another life until its end—natural or otherwise?
These are serious questions, but we need to take pet ownership seriously, reframing it as a privilege instead of a right. We need to work hard to earn that privilege and provide our pets with the best lives possible. Doing so requires us to look at ourselves and our lifestyles critically, but wouldn’t you rather be honest with yourself early on—before it’s too late? Behavioral euthanasia is far from an inevitable outcome, and we should be doing everything in our power to push back against the self-serving impulse to portray it as such. If that means waiting a while longer to prepare and ensure we’re ready to take on any number of challenges adopting a dog could pose… I don’t know about you, but I’d choose that over an untimely goodbye any day. Pet ownership is a privilege, not a right. Let’s start treating it as such. No more dead healthy dogs.
Keeping it light and brief here, because this essay was both heavy and lengthy.
Sudoku. I have always been a fan of these Japanese number-based logic puzzles, buying countless $5 cheapo newsprint books over the years. I got to be really fast at solving them as a kid (even competitively speed-solving puzzles against friends (and always winning >:)), and it’s been a lifelong personal rule that I always solve in pen. Solve like you mean it; no erasing!!! I whip out these books for mental breaks throughout the workday and when winding down at night. It keeps my mind fresh and entertained while keeping me away from screens. I especially recommend solving sudoku puzzles while listening to music or podcasts.
Lake life. No, it’s not the Instagrammable Lake Minnetonka boater’s life that I’m referring to. Rather, I am very happy to be living by so many lakes as a boatless Minneapolitan, and I’ve enjoyed cooling off in Cedar Lake on these wildly hot days. I especially recommend lakeside charcuterie—eating a nice hard cheese or portable Boursin lakeside? A big yes from me.
City pop. If you haven’t heard of it, this is a genre of super bubbly Japanese pop music from the 70s and 80s, and it’s especially perfect for days under the summer sun. An immaculate starting point: Miki Matsubara’s “Mayonaka no Door/Stay With Me.” From there, check out “Remember Summer Days” by Anri and “LIGHT’N UP” by Minako Yoshida as well as “色彩都市,” “Les Aventures de TINTIN,” and “Kusuri o Takusan” by Taeko Ohnuki. The City Pop ‘80s playlist from Spotify is a nice introductory place to start if you’re liking it!