This day in age, we hear a lot about consent, the act of one giving one’s permission or agreement.
The topic usually comes up when sexual acts are involved.
But one animal rights activist says working dogs, like guide dogs, police dogs, and even sheepdogs, are being taken advantage of because they can’t consent to work.
Wendy Turner went on ITV’s “Good Morning Britain” to make her case.
She wants technology to replace the use of guide dogs.
Webster says she doesn’t believe that these worker dogs are unhappy or that they are being abused or subjected to cruelty.
She does, however, think it’s work to put animals in dangerous situations for the benefit of humans without their consent.
She said it’s a matter of welfare.
“The welfare issues are probably two-fold; the first is that they are bred specifically for the program, and the 25 percent of them that don’t make the grade have to be rehomed,” she explains.
“They’re going into a system which is already bursting full of dogs that need to find a new home.”
Webster says that the retirement of these dogs is also an issue.
“The other thing is the concern as to what happens when the dog retires; not every guide dog owner can keep that dog. It’s the whole welfare issue around it. We need new technology.”
Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan wasn’t trying to pick up what Webster was putting down.
He asked her if Webster consented to train her own dog to sit and perform other commands.
“But did you get your dog’s consent to sit? To obey your human orders?” he asked.
“Do you ride horses? Did you get your horses consent to have you charging along on top of it without its consent?”
She said that since teaching the dog to sit was for the dog’s own safety and that’s it’s a very different circumstance.
“I know when I’m putting my animal, or any animal, in a potentially dangerous or vulnerable situation,” she said.
Morgan didn’t agree with that line of thinking.
“You said it’s about consent? You decided, you, Wendy, know better about the animal. Because you’re a saintly figure, when it comes to your animal ownership, we should all relax?”
Instead of debating the issue in a civil manner, Morgan lost his cool and became emotional.
“Oh, you know what, Wendy, why don’t we just let guide dogs do their fabulous work for people who are blind and rely on them and can then get out and about because of their guide dogs?” he clapped back. “The guide dogs always look happy to me, the people that they’re helping look happy to me.”
The other shows presented agreed that it would be great if the technology did exist to replace guide dogs or police dog it would be great.
However, it doesn’t as of now and if it did it could prove to be way too costly.
You can watch a clip from the show below.
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