Column: It's time to question whether we are a nation of animal lovers

William Blake in his ‘Auguries of Innocence’ (1803) declares: ‘A robin redbreast in a cage/Puts all heaven in a rage…/ A dog starved at his master’s gate/Predicts the ruin of the state.’

This spirit of protest against animal cruelty persisted in Thomas Hardy’s verse. In ‘The Blinded Bird’ (1913), he condemns the then customary practice of blinding caged songbirds with a red-hot needle so that they would continually sing, as they could not tell the difference between day and night.

Ending powerfully, the poem presents the bird as spiritually superior to his captors and torturers, drawing on the language of St Paul’s famous epistle: ‘Who hath charity? This bird./Who suffereth long and is kind,/Is not provoked, though blind/And alive ensepulchred?/Who hopeth, endureth all things?/Who thinketh no evil, but sings?/Who is divine? This bird.’

More recently, Philip Larkin has reminded us how often animal suffering is caused by sheer thoughtlessness. ‘Take One Home for the Kiddies’ (written 1964) depicts the all too common purchase of family pets without consideration of their needs. ‘On shallow straw, in shadeless glass,/Huddled by empty bowls, they sleep:/No dark, no dam, no earth, no grass -- /Mam, get us one of them to keep.’

With a matter-of-factness that only intensifies the cruel offence, he pronounces the inevitable consequence: ‘Living toys are something novel,/But it soon wears off somehow./Fetch the shoebox, fetch the shovel – / Mam, we’re playing funerals now.’ (Note that they are not even identified by species: they are, after all, only ‘toys’!)

Has animal welfare improved since then? Consider the impact of Covid in 2020-1, when more and more people decided on impulse to buy a dog during the lockdown.

Within months, innumerable dogs were being mistreated or abandoned. Since then, the general abuse of animals has only increased. If it were not for the dedication of those running rescue centres or animal charities, we would have little to be proud of.

Those interested in animal welfare might like to read my discussion of Robert Bresson’s classic film Au Hasard Balthazar, featuring extracts from the film: https://www.popmatters.com/au-hasard-balthazar-robert-bresson