From the Experts: Stop Dressing Up Dogs; To the Experts: Stop Saying "It"

"Animal welfare experts hot under the collar over dogs in coats"

I have a problem with people dressing their companion animals in cutesy outfits (my friend Ella the greyhound wears a simple coat in extremely cold weather, but that's because as a greyhound, with very thin skin, little fat, and little hair, she actually needs one), so I'm glad to see articles like this being published. But I have a few problems with the article itself too. It's difficult for me to take so-called animal welfare experts seriously when they refer to animals as "it" (and of course, "owner" is a whole other problem). Really--how many more instances of "it" could there be in this remark?

Helen Briggs, a spokeswoman from the RSPCA, added: "Under the Animal Welfare Act, you are obliged to provide appropriate conditions and environments for your dog. So if you are slapping a great big coat on it when it really doesn't need it, then that could cause it to suffer if it is overheating. It is the same as if you leave a dog in a car in hot weather."

Here's a thought--maybe if we want people to stop thinking of animals as things, as toys we can dress up and do countless other inappropriate, demeaning, disrespectful, and abusive things to, we could start by getting the very people who are supposed to be working on those animals' behalf to stop referring to them as things. It's frustrating enough when members of the general public (and Microsoft Word's infuriating spell check) insist on attaching "it" instead of "he" or "she" and "that" instead of "who" to living beings. But when even the so-called animal experts reduce them to mere objects with their chosen language, how are we supposed to get the rest of the world to look at them in any other way?