Dogs are the most popular pet in the United States, with about 65 million of them living with humans, according to Forbes Advisor. Yet man’s relationship with our best friend is complicated because, according to the law, dogs have the same rights as a table and chair.
A new documentary film addresses the idea of giving dogs “non-human personhood” under the law. It asks the provocative question: Should dogs be viewed as humans, not as mere property? If so, where does the idea of “non-human personhood” end?
The documentary, called “Dogs are People Too: A Four-Legged Civil Rights Movement,” takes a hard look at some cases in Detroit and metro Detroit in which police officers killed family dogs. It then examines the important place dogs occupy in society and asks what rights humans should give them. It is sponsored by two animal law groups.
The film comes just as legislation was introduced in Michigan earlier this month to address the topic of animal rights. House Bill 6024 looks to create a Courtroom Animal Advocate Program in Michigan, similar to initiatives in Connecticut and Maine. The bill proposes that in a criminal case involving animal mistreatment, an advocate is present to speak on behalf of the animal.
The film doesn’t take a position on the topic. Instead, it provides various viewpoints for or against extended personhood rights to dogs and other animals. It notes that in 2014 in Argentina, an orangutan named Sandra won recognition as the country’s first “nonhuman person, with the right to liberty” after a judge found that Sandra was illegally detained in a zoo that closed amid reports of abuse. In 2021, the United Kingdom’s government legally recognized lobsters, crabs and octopuses as sentient beings.
“This film made me think,” said Chris Olson, managing partner of Olson law firm in Royal Oak. He is featured prominently in the film along with three of his clients whose dogs were killed by police. “I went to the screening in Prague at the One World Film Festival in March, then in the Brooklyn Film Festival in June. It got people all up in it and interested and excited about it. People in the Q&A afterwards were thoroughly engaged and emotional about it.”
‘A dog doesn’t have any rights’
The film starts in Detroit with Daryll Lindsay and his dog, Babycakes, a large mixed-breed dog. Lindsay describes how Detroit police were searching for a criminal suspect who they believed had run through Lindsay’s property. They arrived to search his yard and found Babycakes on a leash on the driveway, out for a bathroom break.
At this point, a video of the incident shows an officer raise a rifle, fire two shots and kill Babycakes, who was not acting aggressively. A female officer can be heard telling her colleague he just killed that family’s pet.
Another story featured Detroiter Kenneth Savage. In his case, he said Detroit police fired 40 shots over his fence, killing his three dogs. A third case featured in the film involved Amy Dejonghe of Dearborn Heights who said she was misled by an animal control officer when she signed over her dog to him for what she thought was a temporary quarantine. She never saw her dog again.
“The dog doesn’t have any rights. The owner has rights,” Olson said in the film, explaining that the dog is considered property.
Lindsay won $100,000 from the city of Detroit for violating Lindsay’s constitutional right by unlawfully seizing his property. In Savage’s case, the city paid $260,000. But both men said they would rather have their dogs than the money.
“I got a Corvette that got stole and I could care less about it,” Lindsay said in the film. “We’re talking about a dog. It’s not a thing.”
‘A forced reckoning with our use of animals’
Beyond those stories, the film also features University of Connecticut School of Law professor Jessica Rubin and former Connecticut legislator Diana Urban, who conceived and passed into law a program allowing attorneys and law students to represent the interests of animals in court.
“That’s what initially caught our attention,” said Erin Klug, chair of the Animal Law Section of the State Bar ofMichigan and member of Attorneys for Animals. Both organizations are co-sponsoring the screening. “We came for the law but stayed for the captivating and moving stories about dogs. That’s when we decided to sponsor ascreening in Michigan.”
Then there is Rutgers University Professor Gary Francione, who’s written several books on animal rights. In the documentary, he argues if people regard animals as sentient creatures with moral value, then people are obligated to stop eating them, wearing them or using them for anything. He advocates ending the domestication of all dogs.
Rubin said the idea of granting personhood rights to animals creates “a forced reckoning with our use of animals.”
The idea born at a vegan dinner party
The film is the brainchild of Hendrik Faller, who directed it and is the head of film at London-based creative agency TCOL, and Tom Miller, who produced it. The pair are based in the United Kingdom and had worked together on nondocumentary films in the past. They got the idea for this film about five years ago at a dinner party at Faller’s home in London.
“Hendrik was a vegan and he had a vegan dinner party with about 10 people there,” Miller told the Detroit Free Press. “Coming from a non-vegan and dairy farming background, I started to ask the question of ‘Why are you vegan?’ It sparked a conversation at the table which lasted until the wee hours of the morning. People were talking about animals in a way that I never witnessed before and that was the spark where we thought we should be telling a story about this.”
The two wanted to focus on dogs because their popularity would make them relatable to most people.
“We didn’t want make another animal rights documentary,” Faller told the Detroit Free Press. “We thought, ‘How do we connect to people on both sides of the aisle? The vegans and the meat eaters … in a more complicated way.’ ”
The two came across the case of Justice, a horse in Oregon, who in 2018 sued his owner for $100,000, according to an ABC News article. The Animal Legal Defense Fund filed the suit on Justice’s behalf alleging Justice’s owner neglected him by leaving him outside without providing proper food or water. A judge dismissed the case on the grounds that the horse was a “non-human animal” lacking the legal rights to proceed.
The movie makers’ thoughts
The movie is meant to make people think about animals in a complicated way, Miller and Faller said.
“For a long time we’ve said animals matter less, and that’s the argument we want to change,” Faller said, adding, “When I started making this, I was a vegan. Now I am eating a ton of meat and morally I struggle with that. But I still do it.”
As for Miller, who grew up on a dairy farm where the cows are property, his view has shifted. He also struggles to define how humans should consider animals.
“I don’t have a position,” Miller said. “I did at the start, but now that we’ve done this documentary, I don’t. I’m slightly confused by it. I think they are sentient beings — they have a heart, and soul and a mind, which tables and chairs don’t. But if you give it to a dog, you have to give it to cats and everything else. I’m a meat eater. So I’m a hypocrite.”
As for lawyer Olson, he would like to see the law tweaked to make it easier to hold police officers liable when they kill a family dog. He believes that would offer dogs more protection than mere property, but he stops short of advocating for personhood.
“I’m not totally into personhood, I am more interested in the Constitution,” Olson told the Free Press. “One of the things that makes the Fourth Amendment apply is the fact that dogs are property. The Fourth Amendment says the state can’t take your property and shooting it, is taking your property. What would be OK with me is if they were both — property plus … the state also recognizes the emotional attachment, and that is part of the damages.”
The documentary’s screening is at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor where tickets are $25 each and includes a Q&A with people involved in the project.
After that, the film goes to Warsaw in November. Next year, Miller said he is setting up screenings in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Maine, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Indiana and Boston. He is also selling it to a distributor early next year, hoping it will make it to streaming agencies.
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Contact Jamie L. LaReau: jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.
