Essentials for Empathy Development

In addition to the other readings listed in the workshop excerpts, PETA recommends the following reading materials prior to taking the Developing Empathy for Animals exam.

Essential Readings for Empathy Development compiled by PETA. Excerpts below.

The Story of George
Adapted from Let's Have a Dog Party! by Ingrid Newkirk

When Mr. Murray, a writer, lost his dog to old age, he began to think back at what joy his dog had brought into his life and what he had not noticed about his dog while George was still alive.

When the Murray family got George, they had to teach him to go up and down stairs as he'd lived his life on one floor.
Murray wrote: "I think that's the only thing we ever taught him in thirteen years, and it was mostly desperation that made me finally give up and conclude that maybe this dog didn't come to us to learn, but to teach, though it took me a while to understand the lessons." Murray says he started out trying to teach George by using a rolled-up newspaper to stop his barking and dancing through the house every time the doorbell rang or he heard a car in the driveway. "I think he was trying to make me understand," concludes Murray, "that a friend at the door, even a stranger or the mailman, can be a nice little diversion on a humdrum day, and something to celebrate with a little excitement."

'Am I Blue?'
Copyright 1986 by Alice Walker

One day, after a visit to the city, I went out to give Blue some apples. He stood waiting, or so I thought, though not beneath the tree. When I shook the tree and jumped back from the shower of apples, he made no move. I carried some over to him. He managed to half-crunch one. The rest he let fall to the ground. I dreaded looking into his eyes—because I had of course noticed that Brown, his partner, had gone—but I did look. If I had been born into slavery, and my partner had been sold or killed, my eyes would have looked like that. The children next door explained that Blue's partner had been 'put with him,' … so that they could mate and she conceive. Since that was accomplished, she had been taken back by her owner, who lived somewhere else.

Will she be back? I asked.
They didn't know.

Blue was like a crazed person. Blue was, to me, a crazed person. He galloped furiously, as if he were being ridden, around and around his five beautiful acres. He whinnied until he couldn’t. He tore at the ground with his hooves. He butted himself against his single shade tree. He looked always and always toward the road down which his partner had gone. And then, occasionally, when he came up for apples, or I took apples to him, he looked at me. It was a look so piercing, so full of grief, a look so human, I almost laughed (I felt too sad to cry) to think there are people who do not know that animals suffer.

"Animals Are Not Inanimate Objects," a speech by PETA President Ingrid Newkirk featured in Chambers Book of Speeches

When we think about it, perhaps all that keeps us from treating the other animals with respect—the ultimate respect being to leave them in peace to do what they wish to do—is simple prejudice. Human beings have a sorry history of prejudice. Through the ages, our feelings of superiority have caused us to denigrate and abuse others we have felt were somehow less important or less intelligent than ourselves, instead of exercising magnanimity and protecting them …

The questions for our generation, and for future generations, are: "Who are animals, what are we doing to them, and should we change, no matter how comfortable we may be in our old ways?"

Pleasurable Kingdom
by Jonathan Balcombe

Leading animal behavior researcher Jonathan Balcombe proposes that positive feelings in animals could have important ethical ramifications for both science and society as he offers elegant arguments and shares amusing and endearing anecdotes in this book that explores animals' ability to experience happiness.

Making Kind Choices
by Ingrid Newkirk

Every day, each of us is faced with choices: We can choose to hurt or help, to be cruel or kind. In the acclaimed book Making Kind Choices, PETA President Ingrid Newkirk explains how simple choices that we make every day at the dinner table and the grocery-store check-out line can have a life-saving impact on animals.

'The Downed Cow'

The truck carrying this cow was unloaded at Walton Stockyards in Kentucky one September morning. After the other animals were removed from the truck, she was left behind, unable to move. Stockyard workers used customary electric prods in her ear to try to get her out of the truck, then they beat her and kicked her in the face, ribs, and back, but she still didn't move. They tied a rope around her neck, tied the other end to a post in the ground, and drove the truck away. The cow was dragged along the floor of the truck and fell to the ground, breaking both her hind legs and her pelvis in the process. She remained this way until 7:30 that evening.

For the first three hours, she lay in the hot sun crying out. Periodically, when she urinated or defecated, she used her front legs to drag herself along the gravel roadway to a clean spot. She also tried to crawl to a shaded area, but she was unable to move far enough. Altogether, she only managed to crawl between 13 and 14 yards.

Read the rest of her story.

Those interested in learning more about developing empathy for animals may also be interested in the following videos, which are featured in the Developing Empathy for Animals course:

The Power of Compassion is a wonderful resource for those who are interested in learning more about the companion animal overpopulation crisis and its consequences.

The Witness is a compelling, award-winning documentary chronicling one man's transformation from a person who feared and avoided animals to an ardent animal advocate.

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