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“Be[a]ware of the Dog”: A Post-Humanist Approach to HousingAdrian Franklina

a University of Tasmania, Australia

To cite this Article Franklin, Adrian(2006) '“Be[a]ware of the Dog”: A Post-Humanist Approach to Housing', Housing,Theory and Society, 23: 3, 137 — 156To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/14036090600813760URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14036090600813760

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‘‘Be[a]ware of the Dog’’: A Post-Humanist Approach to Housing

ADRIAN FRANKLIN

University of Tasmania, Australia

ABSTRACT Alongside much talk of the dissolution of a nature /culture binary view of the world,there is also, symmetrically, considerable change observed in the performance of relations withnon-humans and the proliferation of hybrids (Latour 1993, Haraway 2003). Through anexamination of why and how humans and companion species have begun to live with each other innew ways this paper will challenge (at least) two of those sociological disciplines currentlygoverned by humanist ontologies. It suggests that the sociology of the family and the sociology ofhousing need a new post-humanist makeover, for it is increasingly doubtful whether either areexclusively human domains. This is because neither families, households or housing can bethought of any longer as humans among themselves. Companion animals are now found not onlyin the vast majority of human households / families but their position, role, agency and status hasshifted quite profoundly. Using data from a national survey of human–animal relations inAustralia it will be shown that companion animals are widely regarded as, and act as, familymembers and that they occupy housing in profoundly different ways1. The paper argues that thisnew period of intimacy also ushers in the potential for greater mutual becomings (or co(a)gencyto use Michael’s term2) as both companion species and their humans (together with theirtechnonatural contexts) explore even more possibilities of co-presence. The paper concludes withan example of this, taken from the House Rabbit Society: a radical and ever more popularexperiment in becomingrabbitbecominghuman (to use a Deleuzian convention)3.

KEY WORDS: Post-humanism, Dogs, Human-animal relations, Family, Housing, Rabbits

As an intellectual and theoretical object, housing conjures up, par excellence, the

humanist-modernist project: human progress is its object and an anthropocentric

world order is its principal outcome. Housing is by and for humans, obviously, and

housing theory has largely confined its attention to theories of provision,

distribution and meaning (to humans) and social construction, with a light flurry

of aesthetic content here and there. But if housing is necessarily related to those

contemporary social and cultural conditions that affect what it is to dwell as a

human4, what it is to be properly and happily housed and the everyday nature of

domestic lifestyle (or housing and ways of life) then those framing humanist themes

Correspondence Address: Adrian Franklin, School Sociology, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 17,

Hobart, Tas 7001, Australia. Tel.: +03 62267241. Fax: +03 62262279. Email: Adrian.Franklin@utas.

edu.au

Housing, Theory and Society,

Vol. 23, No. 3, 137–156, 2006

1403-6096 Print/1651-2278 Online/06/030137–156 # 2006 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/14036090600813760

Downloaded By: [Toma, Claudiu] At: 13:12 7 December 2010

seem only too limiting and narrow; barely even a beginning. In times of liquid

modernity, makeover culture and an experimental, playful and open-ended

domesticity, we must begin to bring in perspectives that can cope with this

complexity (see Urry 2003, Law and Mol 2002), with its relational materialism (Law

1999), its sociotechnical hybridity (Michael 2000) and semiotics (Latour 1993). If we

look closely at people and their homes or what happens in homes from theperspective of what people do, or in John Law’s (1994) terms deploy a sociology of

verbs rather than nouns, then one of the first and most striking things we find in

almost every home in the western world and beyond is that homes are not home just

to humans but that they are home to humans living very closely and purposefully

with other species, particularly with cats and dogs5. Other non-humans also figure in

these heterogeneous assemblages: machines, technologies, texts, policies, restrictive

covenants, cleaning agents and the agents cleansed. It goes without saying that such

stories cannot properly be told with including the full cast of supporting actors. MikeMichael’s (2000) salutary advice here (to view actors as necessarily involved in

heterogeneous assemblages rather than free-standing and separable), particularly as

it is demonstrated in the Hudogleddog essay is acknowledged, if not fully heeded,

here. In this essay, however, I will confine my attention to the way humanist housing

has been undermined by the increasingly intertwined nature of domestic life with

companion species.

The sociology of the family also remains resolutely humanist, though as a sub-

discipline whose object has always been in permanent crisis and collapse it is hardlysurprising that eventually those tensions have been resolved through recourse to the

non-human world. Companionship, friendship, love and even community are words

that have been rescued for many through new relationships with companion animals.

Despite a growing literature that confirms this we have not seen serious sociological

research investigate these new anthrozoological formations. We do not even have a

systematic description of the communications or ethogram between these two species

though one exists for species such as humans and dogs, separately (Smutts 2001).

What follows is a beginning.The paper is arranged as follows. Firstly, it describes in fairly crude terms the

extent of this multi-species occupation of housing and the changing designation from

pet to companionate family member. Secondly, it accounts for this relatively new

phenomenon by relating it to fairly standard dimensions of housing and family –

household formation, contemporary family structures, contemporary community

life, ontological security, risk and, to use another of Bauman’s terms, ‘‘liquid love’’.

Thirdly, it argues that the nature of relationships with companion species has

changed from instrumental to companionate to familial relations, and, that duringthe course of these shifts both species have had opportunities to make further

experiments with each other, not least in how they live and are housed together.

Survey data and interviews with veterinarians are used to support this claim. Finally

the paper discusses how domestic life and other family and housing issues are

affected by the accommodation of companion species and the emergence of trans-

species housing. These include that changing nature of spatial use and boundaries

within the home; new technologies and architectures of the multi-species house and

garden; the changing nature of sociability and communal life; the tangible benefits tohuman health and well being; the implications of the latter for elderly people,

138 A. Franklin


children and the socially isolated and its translation into new areas of policy

initiative. In short the socio-technical-semiotic complex that is housing and family

can be shown to have affected a significant shift from a humanist to a post-humanist

form.

The paper will draw on a variety of empirical sources, but notably the first ever

national survey of human animal relations conducted in Australia (Franklin 2006),the growing literature on general relationships with companion animals from the

Anglophone world, the special literature relating to the health benefits of companion

animals (from the USA, Australia and the UK and, finally, work relating to the

special case of the American House Rabbit Society

Multi-Species Households

A recent trip to the national folk Museum in Cardiff, Wales, UK, reminded me thatWestern cultures have lived with and not just adjacent to animals for a very long

time. Some of the oldest farm dwellings in their collection of historic buildings from

Wales contained humans and farm animals – for entirely practical reasons: in the

cold winters when the cattle were kept indoors the heat from their bodies provided

warmth for the humans. Similarly, there were instances of pig-hen houses: the heat

from the pigs kept the hens above them warm in winter, extending their laying period

considerably. We don’t know much about these cohabitations because they went

unrecorded and by modern times the differentiating impulse worked to keep speciesapart, in their rightful place. In 1950s modern suburban Australia and the USA pets

were common enough, but by contemporary standards even they were differentiated

spatially, behaviourally and ethically to a considerable degree. 1950s dogs lived

outside in the kennel or dog house, a term that became synonymous with socially

cast out or suspended (temporarily) from affection – and in misery (Council for

Science and Society 1988). Cats were put outside at night in the dark and cold.

Moreover, as Franklin (1999) has shown, in the 1950s dogs and cats were

differentiated by different naming strategies. Whereas from the 1970s it can beshown that dogs began to be given human names, and that from the 1990s they

began to be given the same names currently being given to human babies, in the

1950s dogs (and cats) tended to be given specifically dog or cat names (Fido, Rover,

Tibby, Kitty and the like). The materialist politics of the early to mid-twentieth

century also meant that many household did not have pets, though we know poverty

and low pay encouraged some to keep backyard or allotment animals for meat

(Williamson 1982). The so-called post-materialist Western societies of the 1970

onwards lived in a world of plentiful food and keeping pets was no great financialobstacle, though why they should be so compelling under conditions of dual-income

families, fast-time, careerism and the information age begs the question. That pet

keeping, particularly of cats and dogs, has increased dramatically since the 1970s is

not in question (Franklin 1999). Accounting for this, and in particular accounting

for the changing nature of relations between them and their humans is more

demanding. It was certainly after the 1970s that ‘‘pets’’ changed to ‘‘companion

animals’’.

In a country such as Australia more than two-thirds of households today keep ananimal on their property and given that Australia is almost completely settled in its

A Post-Humanist Approach to Housing 139


six capital cities (and always has been) we can discount any major influence from its

farming, rural/colonial past. Where property is extremely expensive and a greater

proportion of households live in high-rise apartments, such as Sydney, the density of

companion animal keeping is lower (see Table 1). This may be accounted for, almost

entirely, by restrictive covenants and greater proportions of non-companion animal

orientated ethnic groups. Elsewhere in suburban and more anglicized Australia, up

to 86% of households keep an animal of one kind or another

Mostly, as Table 2 shows, it is dogs and cats that dominate multi-species

households, with dogs the species of preference (47%), cats a poor second (30%) and

birds coming in third with unexpectedly high numbers (17%). On the other hand, the

range of ‘‘exotic’’ species in the survey is also remarkable and relatively new.

Table 3 offers some purchase on why contemporary households include

companion animals. If in the 1950s ‘‘pets’’ were predominantly bought for children,

for their function and for amusement (Council for Science and Society 1988,

Franklin 1999) this is certainly not the case today. Dogs, cats, rabbits, fish and birds

were all kept to amuse children, to a degree, but this was not why most of the

animals in our survey were recruited to human households. Nor was it to provide

company for children, though this was more significant. The single biggest reason

given was as company for our 2000 adult Australian respondents. In the case of cats

and dogs this was given for 80% of the number of animals recorded in our survey,

but it was also the case in 50% of all birds kept and 35% of rabbits.

Table 1. Do you keep animals on your property?

Total Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Perth Adelaide ACT Hobart

Respondents (n) 2000 430 361 153 140 122 36 21Yes (%) 68 55 59 69 75 77 81 86No (%) 32 45 41 31 25 23 19 14

Table 2. What types of animals do you currently keep on your property?


Respondents (n) 2000 430 361 153 140 122 36 21Birds (%) 17 15 11 16 19 14 14 24Cats (%) 30 21 28 30 29 40 31 52Dogs (%) 47 36 39 46 49 53 44 71Fish (%) 13 11 8 15 12 19 14 14Guinea pigs or

hamsters (%)2 1 2 2 2 3 3

Horses (%) 4 1 1 4 1 3Rabbits (%) 2 4 1 4 4 6None of these (%) 1 1 0 1 3Not asked* (%) 32 45 41 31 25 23 19 14

*The survey was administered to a nationally representative sample of 2000 Australians. However,detailed questions on animal ownership was only asked of those who kept animals on their property, hencethere is a value in this and other tables for those ‘‘Not asked’’. ACT5Australian Capital Territory.

140 A. Franklin


Elsewhere I have tried to account for this astonishing phenomenon in terms of

critical social changes in contemporary society (Franklin 1999, Franklin & White

2001). Western societies have become individualized societies where extensive

loneliness in society and high degrees of ontological insecurity are widely reported

(Giddens 1984, Bauman 2000, Furedi 2005)6. As Bauman has repeatedly claimed,

marriage, friendship, partnership, community ties and even love itself has become

insecure, ephemeral and fugitive: in his own poetic words they have become ‘‘until

further notice’’ (Bauman 2000, 2003).

In a previous book Animals and Modern Cultures7 I argued that those in Western

Anglophone societies who have suffered family trauma and who find themselves

alone and possibly socially and physically insecure or isolated often acquire

companion animals, particularly dogs and cats. Divorce, separation, single

parenthood, economic depression, the migration of young people from country

areas, insecure local labour markets, all serve to increase the numbers of people

living alone or households stranded away from former kin. The numbers of lone or

small household units has increased dramatically over the past 30 years, to the point

where the building industry now builds for a different, lonelier demography.

‘‘According to US Census Bureau projections, by 2010, 31 million Americans will be

living alone, a 40% increase from 1980’’8. According to the BBC, ‘‘the independent

Family Policy Studies Centre (FPSC) findings show that more than 6.5 million

people in Britain – about 28% of households – now live on their own, three times as

many as 40 years ago9. In Australia things are no different. Lindsay Tanner, MP for

Melbourne, describes it as a crisis of loneliness10, citing significance proportions of

elderly and young people as at risk. The latest survey on loneliness among

Australians aged 25–44 years, the group that has experienced the highest increase in

solitary living, found that 16% of both men and women agreed with the statement ‘‘I

often feel lonely’’ (Flood 2005:11). However 33% of men and 23% of women living

alone reported feeling lonely often. Clearly, people believe that their loneliness will

be alleviated by animal companionship (and as I will show, companionship is the

single biggest reason given for acquiring a dog, a cat or a bird) and indeed, the most

sophisticated research using the ‘‘Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale’’ found that

participants living entirely alone were more lonely than those living with pets11.

Table 3. Thinking about all domestic animals you have at the moment, and excluding animals

you keep for work, would you say you keep your pets for:

Birds Cats Dogs Fish Rabbits

Respondents (n) 303 592 945 204 40Amusement and entertainment of adults (%) 38 24 26 45 20Amusement and entertainment of children (%) 30 24 22 45 58Competitive showing (%) 2 1 2 0Other competition or sport (%) 1 0 2 0Work (%) 1 1 6 0 3Security and protection (%) 1 2 48Company for yourself (%) 50 79 82 12 35Company for children (%) 37 44 43 16 40



Even those who are currently setting up new households put off having children

for longer and are far more likely to have no children or only one. Such households

frequently buy dogs or cats to fill out their household, to provide a focus for their

relationship or to provide surrogate siblings for ‘‘only children’’. Our survey data

supports the notion that pet keeping responds to transformations in family and

lifecycle change. For example, while in married and de facto households theproportion of dog owners who chose dogs for their company was 80%, in divorced

or separated households the proportion rose to 88%, in widowed households to 90%

and among the retired 91%. Similarly, the divorced and separated are more likely to

choose a dog for security and protection than married/de facto households (Franklin

2006).

In Animals and Modern Cultures I also argued that a number of indicators show

that companion animals had been increasingly brought closer to their human friends

in emotional and social terms; indeed, that they were now often reckoned to be partof the family. We therefore asked whether respondents considered any of their

animals to be members of their family. This not only indicates the surrogacy of

animals for significant human relationships, but it also indicates a breakdown in the

perceived difference between humans and non-humans. We also asked about

animals as family members because this ascription came up spontaneously and

frequently in a series of focus groups conducted in advance of the national survey.

This translation is commonly referred to as anthropomorphism, or the attribution of

human-like qualities to animals that are merely whimsical fantasies of the humanimagination. This may be so, but it is not necessarily so. If people are merely

extending to animals, as animals, the notion of belonging, and recognizing close

bonds with them as equivalent to those within human families, then this is not a case

of anthropomorphism, it is a case of hybridization: hybridization of the family.

Unproblematic similarities might include co-residence, enduring ties, emotional

inter-dependence, friendship, company and shared activities. Where this happens it is

important to realize that it is not a one-way, human-orchestrated attribution, but

one built of close feelings and emotions self-evidently expressed also by the animalsthemselves. We see with birds, especially of the parrot and cockatiel family, emotions

such as jealousy and dependence, and embodied practices such as cuddling and

kissing. Some of these, of course, are parrot expressions, translations of courtship

and pair bonding behaviours that can be observed between parrots, but the critical

point is that some of them are not. Some of them are specific to the bonds between

humans and animals; unique to them. A good example of this is the vocal

expressions between cats and humans. Cats are largely mute in their dealing with

each other in the wild, but they seem to have learned of the significance ofvocalization between humans and the fact that humans vocalize to them. The meow

is the most significant (though it has many variations): cats do not meow to each

other. And it is also true that the breeds that have been domesticated the longest are

also the most vocal in their dealings with their human companions. According to

Kersti Seksel, ‘‘we really should understand cats better as they’ve gone to the trouble

of developing special forms of communication just to talk to humans, using body

language and vocalization which they’d never use with other cats’’12.

As Table 4 shows, the overwhelming majority of Australians did ascribe familymembership to their pets. This may not be so new, but what seems to be new is the

142 A. Franklin


willingness to express it. One vet in an affluent suburb in Sydney had this to say

about companion animals as substitute children or just children:

Well funny enough people are actually willing to admit that it’s a substitute

child. They’re not embarrassed to actually say that. A lot of them actually say

it is a substitute child. I notice that – I don’t recall that so much in the past, but

in recent years I have noticed that people actually refer to it as their child inmany ways, you know.

Vet 3, Sydney.

On average, 88% thought that the animals they keep were part of their family.

Some places were well above this average, such as Perth and Hobart (94%) and

Melbourne, rural WA and rural Victoria (91%). Some were well below the average,

such as Sydney (84%) ACT (72% and NT (78%) (see Table 5). So in relation to this

issue there is no clear-cut urban rural divide. Sydney consistently shows up as lesssentimental and emotionally involved with animals, while in Melbourne and Hobart

such characteristics are very strong. Similarly, rural Queensland and the Northern

Territory are less emotionally and sentimentally attached than rural areas in

Tasmania and rural Victoria. This suggests that the critical factors are not urbanness

or ruralness but other cultural configurations in each place.

In addition to place, the degree to which people considered animals to be part of

their family varied, once again, with occupation and educational attainment.

Although we must be clear that the overwhelming majority of Australians didconsider their animals to be part of their family, it is also the case that the less

educated and those in blue-collar occupations were far more likely to. Unskilled and

skilled blue-collar groups dominated those who considered animals to be part of

their family (93% and 92%, respectively) while the white-collar professional and

managerial groups scored lowest (84% and 86%, respectively). Educational

attainment data shows that some groups in society are much less likely to consider

animals to be part of their family. Those with higher degrees are well below the

average in these terms and that likelihood of seeing animals as family members variesgradually with educational level (Franklin 2006).

Table 4. Do you think of any animals you keep as members of your family (capital cities)?


All respondents (n) 2000 430 361 153 140 122 36 21Asked respondents (n) 1350 237 214 105 105 94 29 18Yes (% asked

respondents)88 84 92 90 94 88 72 94

No (% askedrespondents)

12 16 8 10 6 12 28 6

Don’t know (n) 3 3% respondents not

asked33 45 41 31 25 23 19 14

ACT5Australian Capital Territory.



Clearly there is something important about formal education that disturbs

attitudes and practices with animals. It is highly likely that those processed through

the tertiary and higher educational mills are most exposed to enlightenment

biopolitics and formal scientific positions on the essential (and proper) difference

between humanity and animality. Such views are mirrored in many contemporary

debates: in social and cultural studies of the environment and political movements, in

the sciences of ecology and land management and in Australian eco-nationalistic

history. One suspects that the less educated are less influenced by such taxonomiesand ontologies and tend to take animals as they find them.

To see whether ascribing family status to animals meant anything more than just

sentimental labels, we asked whether companion animals had access to those parts of

the house historically reserved for humans (Table 6). Anecdotal evidence suggests

that in the 1950s and before, animals were largely kept out of the home, sleeping in

kennels and on verandas. Today this is very much not the case. We scaled questions

according to where animals were allowed in the home, from the backyard at one

extreme to the bedroom and on furniture, including beds, at the other. Over half ofrespondents claimed their companion animals were allowed in their bedroom and

35% allowed animals in their children’s bedroom. Forty-eight percent of households

allowed animals on their furniture. Seventy-six percent allowed their animals into the

family room or lounge, 62% allowed their animals in the room where they eat and

66% allowed animals into the kitchen. In other words companion animals mostly

have the run of the house.

We expected to find a significant difference between rural and urban Australia

over this question, but although there was a difference, the difference was not thatmarked: 57% of urban Australian respondents allowed animals into their bedroom

for example, as against 47% of rural Australians. If our general hypothesis about

changing family structure, social vulnerability and loneliness and companion

animals was true we would expect the more sociably vulnerable groups to be more

liberal in their sharing of household space. Certainly there is some evidence for this.

For example, 58% of those between 70 and 75 years of age and 65% of those over 76

years of age allowed their companion into their bedroom. Similarly, while only 49%

of married and de facto households allowed their companion animals into thebedroom, 59% of the divorced and separated did so. Other tolerant groups included

Table 5. Do you think of any animals you keep as members of your family (rural areas)?

Total NTNSWrural

VICrural

QLDrural

WArural

SArural

TASrural

All respondents (n) 2000 17 250 151 192 51 45 31Asked respondents (n) 1350 9 175 122 144 43 34 21Yes (% asked respondents) 88 78 84 91 90 91 82 81No (% asked respondents) 12 22 15 9 10 9 15 19Don’t know (% asked respondents) 0 0 2Not asked (%) 33 47 30 19 25 16 24 32

NT5Northern Territories; SA5South Australia; WA5Western Australia; QLD5Queensland;VIC5Victoria; NSW5New South Wales; TAS5Tasmania.

144 A. Franklin


two other groups vulnerable to loneliness: those under 20 years old (58%) and singles

(60%).

The symbolism of household space needs to be emphasized here. Bedrooms are

largely highly private spaces, the inner sanctum of privatized societies. Partners,

close friends and siblings and other close family members form the restricted group

of intimates using bedrooms together. So, in this sense, when people in our survey

stated that an animal was both a member of the family and allowed into their

bedroom, it was a refined answer indicating that they were not just a member of the

family but also a very close intimate member. Sitting rooms in modern homes are

places of social gathering and communal activities. Chairs are symbolic of both

belonging and status in Western cultures and this is illustrated both by norms to give

up seats to elders and the associating of high status with seats (aristocratic estates),

chairs (synonyms of high ranking authority) and of course thrones. To be seated

together means to be equally ranked. Therefore in the past when dogs were kept

outside in a separate house, or when they were allowed inside but not on furniture

their separate, inferior status was being marked. To discover that half of those

interviewed allowed their animals on furniture is to uncover a major shift in their

status and position relative to humans and human society.

To check whether this is so we framed a few statements in terms of moral and

political equivalence.

We asked if people agreed that ‘‘Keeping animals as pets is unnatural and

demeaning to both the humans and the animal’’; and ‘‘People who mistreat their

animals should be punished in the same way as people who mistreat human beings’’;

and ‘‘Animals should have the same moral rights as human beings’’. Table 7 shows

that these triangulating questions confirm a substantial move towards moral and

political equivalence. Fifty five percent agreed with the moral equivalence statement.

Perhaps more significant is the fact that when this exact question was asked

previously in a 1993 survey, only 42% of Australians agreed13. I suggest that this

change is significant.

Living Together in New Ways?

We have not had the opportunity to investigate in any depth whether these changes

in human-animal households and co-habitations have resulted in new ways of

accommodating and relating to each other, but we suspect that this is happening.

What is obviously so new about these relatings (to use term Haraway (2003) prefers)

is their new intensity (especially the intensity of time spent together), their focus on

essentially domestic/private/familial spaces, their emotional content and, at least

from the human side, the degree to which relatings with animals replace those with

other humans but it may well be that it is true for many animals too. The stories I am

beginning to hear about these relatings is that they have an open-ended,

experimental becoming rather than a fixed, behaviourally given and limited nature.

This is why Haraway and I prefer the fluid character of relatings (or relationships) to

the more definable and inflexible relationship. But it is also because relatings

acknowledge, and maintain methodologically, a more symmetrical pattern of agency

between humans and companion species. As Haraway says:



Table 6. Are any of the domestic animals you keep, allowed into the following parts of your property?

Back yardVeranda/balcony Laundry Kitchen

The roomwhere you eat

The family orlounge room

Yourbedroom

Children’sbedroom

On thefurniture

Total 1350 1350 1350 1350 1350 1350 1350 1350 1350Yes (%) 95 79 72 66 62 76 52 35 48No (%) 5 19 28 34 38 24 47 63 52Don’t know (%) 1 2 0 0 0 0 3 0

Table 7. Australian attitudes to animal issues

It is quite acceptableto hunt feral

animals, such aspigs and wild horses,

that degrade theenvironment

It is wrong tohunt nativeAustralian

animals

Keepinganimals as

pets isunnatural anddemeaning to

both thehumans andthe animal

People whomistreat their

animals should bepunished in the

same way aspeople who

mistreat humanbeings

Animals shouldhave the samemoral rights ashuman beings

It is right to useanimals for

medical testing ifit might savehuman lives

All respondents (n) 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000Strongly agree (%) 20 35 2 45 15 8Agree (%) 48 36 8 39 40 47Disagree (%) 21 19 48 12 34 26Strongly disagree (%) 7 6 38 3 6 12Have no opinion/don’t know (%) 4 4 4 1 20 6

14

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klin


There cannot be just one companion species; there has to be at least two to

make one. It is in the syntax; it is in the flesh. Dogs are about the inescapable,

contradictory story of relationships – co-constitutive relationships in which

none of the partners pre-exist the relating, and the relating is never done once

and for all. Historical specificity and contingent mutability all the way down,

into nature and culture, into naturecultures.

(Haraway 2003:12)

More specifically for Haraway, as for Law (1994, 1999), we need to search for a

sociology of verbs not nouns:

Reality is an active verb, and the nouns all seem to be gerunds with more

appendages than an octopus. Through their reaching into each other, through

their ‘‘prehensions’’ or graspings, beings constitute each other and themselves.

Beings do not pre-exist their relatings. ‘‘Prehensions’’ have consequences.

(Haraway 2003:6)

While Haraway’s essay is specifically about domestic dogs – the subtitle is Dogs,

People and Significant Otherness – a species with whom humanity has had a long and

mutually constitutive series of relatings, the significance of prehensions, graspings

and co-constitutions apply equally to other species from whenever point they enter

into companionate relatings. The essential point is that they are open-ended,

experimental and likely to fold in other objects and beings into their cultural field.

In the case of Michael’s Hudogledog, for example, it is argued that it is the

co(a)gent or hybrid of the dog, the dog lead and the human dog walker that

constitute the nature of interesting and important community relationships in

English parks and recreational spaces. This story and co(agency) is but one in the

evolving nature of companion animals, humans and community in contemporary

society. Michael shows that it is the nature of the co(a)gency rather than objects

acting separately that configures the social and cultural interactions in the park.

Co(a)gents come into being ‘‘as heterogeneous admixtures….specific technologies,

bits of bodies, aspects of nature, parts of culture and traditions of discourse…’’

(Michael 2000:2). Similarly, my argument here is that co(a)gency is operating in the

constitution of contemporary homes, household and families. Very advisedly, I

avoid being too specific about the exact nature of this, since it will be something that

needs to be investigated rather than reported fully here. However, it is possible to

point to some examples and tell the story of one in some detail (although this means

switching from Australia to the USA and from dogs to rabbits).

The nature of housing choices, for example, is influenced by the consideration of

the housing of companionate animals who are significant others in the lives of

householders. Vets in Sydney, Perth and Hobart told me that their quality of life and

their environment are aspects that contemporary owners emphasize more and more.

Dog owners like to choose places with good walks for their dogs; areas where the

other dogs are not too rough and off the lead; areas where walks are not too

crowded; where there is a good choice and variability of walks (people who are more

attentive of their dogs realize that they get bored of the same route, just as they do).



Such consideration may make a considerable impact on the nature of local housing

markets in a way that children’s schools once did (more significantly).

Equally, the nature of house type enters into the equation with gardens, for

example, becoming significant considerations among those who are not necessarily

keen gardeners. Garden design for companion animals has become important since

greater care has been exercised over their physical and mental health. A dogconsigned to the back yard in Australia was once left to its own devices, but now,

under more closely caring eyes, behavioural problems and mental suffering have

become cause for concern. For example, vets and contemporary dog health manuals

advise giving dogs a view of life in their neighbourhood; vantage points where they

can look out. This breaks up the solid walls and fence lines of homes and leads to less

neurotic digging and unending barking. Similarly, gardens that were once designed

for vegetables, children’s play, lawns and roses are now being more actively

considered from both human and animal perspectives. Some, for example, allow forunhindered running, for playing fetch and ball games. Others include a water pool

for animals, a water source, elevation, climbing, hiding, digging and sleeping. It is a

mistake to think that this is just a question of human choice and agency because

typically it is knowledge and experience of companion species agency that inform or

inscribes itself on human decisions.

The interiors of homes are also changing. At one time the choice of coming into

and out of the house was determined by humans, but the spread of cat and dog doors

has changed that and extended more choice to the animals. The amount of animal-specific furniture being added to the home is on the increase. Cats like to be in

elevated, draught-free, warm spots and owners have experimented with nests,

lookouts, climbing posts, ramps and boxes. In the UK owners can buy nests that fix

to central heating radiators. Across the Western world new companies have emerged

to provide luxurious, species-specific furniture that recognizes the elevated status of

companion animals in the family and household. Widely considered as pampering

and kitsch, this nonetheless expresses something important: animals are just as good

as people as objects for the expression of love and attachment and they are equallygood at asserting their agency in human households.

All of this is not merely the artefact of human cultural displacement, the welling

up of human emotion and ingenuity in the absence of proper (human) objects of the

imagination. Much of what changes is done in relation to/in combination with what

the animals do, prefer, enact. Much of it is or begins with non-human agency. For

example, the opening up of the full range of human domestic spaces to species that

had hitherto little experience of them began an emergent history of experimentation

and discovery. One woman in Brisbane discovered that her companion cane toadsthat lived in specially constructed homes in her garden liked the sound of her

computer keyboard as she typed her work in the kitchen. They would gradually all

come inside to listen. Then the cane toads discovered that the woman’s bare feet were

warm and pleasant to sit on and before long the local cane toad family fought each

other for prime corpo(real) estate (Lewis 1989:58). Evidently they became soothed

and hypnotized by their kinesthesic experience. In the case of my own dog Coco,

who came to us shortly after this project began (and whose biography with us was all

the more acutely observed as a result), her access to the entire house was a problem.We had a large, open plan house with a large kitchen area that she could enter from

148 A. Franklin


one of two directions. She is a large, rangy boisterous dog and her normal behaviour

in the kitchen with children learning to cook, etc, was clearly dangerous. What did

we need to do? Alter the kitchen design with door or barriers? Actually no, what we

discovered is that dogs are hypersensitive to and respectful of the micro-politics of

space. After saying no to her coming into the kitchen, for what seemed like hardly

any time at all, she never come in and would never even try – while we were there.We did not know this before or read it somewhere; we discovered it about her, just as

she discovered that we didn’t want her in the kitchen. Over time we realized that

Coco always like to locate herself centrally or equidistantly in relation to humans

and cats in the house and in a watchful position for them. At night when humans sat

around a television Coco sensed the significance of the gathering and wanted to be as

close as possible. She was fidgety and restless without a place on a chair around the

television but perfectly relaxed and mellow once installed in her television chair

place.Relatings between humans and companion species also have very significant

impacts on who we are and how we are, how ‘‘partners come to be who we are in

flesh and sign’’ (Haraway 2003:25, my emphasis). In fleshy terms nothing could be

more significant than our health and physical (and mental) wellbeing, but these are

positively reconfigured, mainly in positive ways by our relatings with companion

species. In 1992 Anderson, Reid & Jennings found that in a survey of those attending

a cardiovascular screening service (n55741) in Melbourne, pet owners reported

significantly fewer visits to doctors and significantly less consumption of specifiedmedications (for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, sleeping difficulties or heart

problems). Pet owners had ‘‘significantly lower systolic blood pressure and plasma

triglycerides than non-owners’’, but the two groups ‘‘did not differ in body mass

index, socio-economic indicators, or smoking habits’’ (Jennings et al. 1998:163).

Moreover, pet owners in the study ate more meat and take-out food. Since then

numerous international follow-up studies have largely confirmed these findings

(Headey 1998, Freidmann, Thomas & Eddy 2000).

The significance of all this has not passed unnoticed by the researchers concerned.In 1998 Jennings et al. estimated the health benefits of companion animals based on

their 1992 survey. Using 1993–94 health costs in Australia, the total savings were

estimated at $144,892 million, comprising of savings from GP visits of $26,244

million; savings on pharmaceuticals of $18,856 million and savings on hospitaliza-

tion of $144,892 million. According to a later study based on nationally

representative data, the estimate figure was considerably higher. Headey and

associates replicated Anderson’s survey and found similar results: pet owners made

significantly fewer visits to doctors and used significantly less medicine. Using 1994–95 Medicare expenditure and assuming that all recurrent health expenditure can be

divided up proportionately to the number of doctor visits people make, Headey

(1998) calculated the saving to be $988 million, representing 2.7% of the nation’s

health expenditure. However, as we enter a new phase of more intensive and detailed

study of this phenomenon, the benefits may be more significant as a result of being

able to direct them more effectively in the population through training and

supervision. For example, Jennings et al. strongly suggest that the critical benefit

may not be from ownership per se but from specific types of relationship. Theyfound, for example, that ‘‘non-partnered people who reported feeling close to their



dogs made significantly fewer doctor visits and took less medication than non-

partnered people who were not close to their dogs’’ (Jennings et al. 1998:168). This

suggests that we need to understand the relationship itself and its variation, how close

relationships develop and why they deliver health benefits. With greater confidence

in their administration and armed with Headey’s finding that people over the age of

55 years have the most to gain, Australia might elect enact policies that promotetheir take-up.

While cardiovascular disease is a prominent problem for the nation, the benefit of

understanding the relationship we have with companion species is considerably

wider. It extends to general wellbeing (Garrity & Stallones 1998), treatment of

depression, loneliness and anxiety (Wilson 1998:61), and Alzheimer’s disease

(Batson, McCabe, Baun & Wilson 1998) to say nothing about therapeutic uses in

prisons, hospitals and homes for elderly people.

The health benefits of the human–companion animal relation is not one way.While there may be reciprocated life-prolonging influences for animals by simply

being with humans, there are now very tangible medical benefits through the

willingness of humans to pay for veterinary services. During interviews with vets in

Australia, in Perth, Sydney and Hobart, it was obvious that owners are willing to

pay very large sums of money for their animal’s health. This is bottom-line proof of

the meaningfulness of owners’ claims that their animals are their family. As we will

see owners now spend small fortunes on the health needs of cats and dogs, but it is

not restricted to these species. One of the most extraordinary stories was told by aPerth vet. It concerned a pet rabbit:

I have a reputation to be one of the best vets for rabbits in Australia and I had

this lady with a sick rabbit in Brisbane and she paid me $100,000 to come and

treat it…. A lot of people will feed the rabbit and don’t think much about the

rabbit, but for this person the importance of the rabbit was at least worth

$100,000. But that’s the extreme, but I’ve had people telling me that they would

give everything they have to treat their animal and they are usually able to find$5000 to $10,000.’’

Another vet in Sydney emphasized that people tend to follow very similar

treatment options for animals and not merely the cheapest. Nor are they necessarily

in non-human hospitals:

I have a dog with a tumour of its lower jaw that, umm, we could – it’s a cancer

and the real option for this guy is to have his jaw removed surgically. Now theowner said, ‘‘I don’t want to do that. What other options do I have?’’ The

other option is radiation therapy and so we’ve negotiated to deal with a human

radiotherapist. I am transporting this dog every afternoon up to the Human

Radiotherapy Unit at Wahroonga Hospital, which takes me about three-

quarters of an hour drive to an hour drive. We anaesthetize the dog at that site.

He is treated in the human hospital and then I wake him up from the

anaesthetic and I transport him back again and we’re doing it every day for ten

days. Now that is going to cost the owner $6500 by the time he has finishedthat treatment. Now we could have removed his jaw for probably $2000 to

150 A. Franklin


$3500 going through all of that procedure and the aftercare and what have you.

But the owner didn’t want to do that. He wanted to maintain the integrity of

the dog’s jaw, it’s appearance and it’s function and so to do that we’re spending

$6500 in an attempt to cure his cancer. Now we know he mightn’t get a cure.

He has only got probably a 75% chance of getting a cure, but the owner is

prepared to do it. Umm – is that a good enough example?

A further demonstration of the extension of humanity to companion species is

expressed in owners concern about pain. It may surprise some that pain relief was

hardly administered to companion species in the past. This is no longer true, but

again the change is quite recent, as this Sydney vet acknowledged:

…they just have higher expectations, yeah. So, for example, they are very

concerned about pain relief and we offer a lot of pain relief these days, whichcertainly going back some years was not so broadly done. You might give pain

relief initially, but we give on going pain relief and people are often very

concerned about what pain their animal might be in. I think that’s something

different.

But prehensions and graspings such as this go beyond the practical realm of

everyday life and embodiment, rich though that is. The intensity of life with

contemporary companion animals is such that this serial dance of agency altersforever whatever conceptions of animals or particular species one might begin with

and in particular demonstrates the instability of the notion of species. Species are

understood as fully and finally formed entities with a coherent and limited body of

behaviour; with what we might call ‘‘a nature’’, to use everyday language, that

defines but also circumscribes them. However, life in the new environment of the

contemporary home destabilizes such narrow conceptions and both species of the

companionate relation live in this unstable but mutually re-constituting ontology.

The case of the House Rabbit Society in the USA, my final example is all that ittakes to demonstrate the infinity of possible worlds of relatings, affordances,

prehensions, naturecultures and indeed technonatures that constitute the prospect

for humans and animals.

The House Rabbit Society

What follows is based mainly on the work of Julie A. Smith (2003) and to a lesser

extent on other publications by other House Rabbit Society (HRS) members. WhenI first heard Smith talk about the HRS at a conference in London in 2001 I began to

realize that this was probably not an eccentric oddity but the beginning of something

that was becoming – has already become – more widespread. One immediately

thinks of ‘‘natural horse riding’’ for example as a cognate development. Whether

eccentric or zeitgeist, it is clearly the archetype of developments and becomings

suggested in this paper.

The HRS is an organization founded in 1988 in California by Marinell Harriman

and others that encourages a new way of living with rabbits: not imprisoned inhutches, alone and outside but relatively free to live with humans and other rabbits



inside human dwellings (though as it progressed the latter can only be considered

humanrabbithomes). ‘‘Holes’’ would be a good term for them, not only because this

is one way of describing a natural rabbit home or burrow, but because this is how

many conventional middle American people would uncharitably describe the homes

of the HRS after they had become rabbitized….as you will see and hear.

Smith’s wonderful paper is part biography and part analysis. One of the maindriving anxieties for Smith is how to live ethically with animals such as domestic

rabbits and she begins her paper responding to Tuan’s (1984) critique of pet keeping

and the sinister side of humanity it expresses (the pleasure of dominance, as he put

it). Throughout the paper Smith tries to rescue an ethical position for keeping

domestic rabbits in the way the HRS does. They rescue rabbits from a variety of

perils, recruiting most of them from animal shelters. Thus, the first ethical position is

that she is rescuing them from danger, then looking after them, then, by applying the

rules of the HRS adopting them out to those agreeing to abide by the HRS rules. Butnext she worries about the ethics of their life with humans: surely humans are

exercising an unacceptable dominance even those as caring as the HRS.

For example, HRS rabbits are neutered. Smith agonizes over this, but eventually

understands it as a medical intervention in favour of the rabbits’ health (a life of

breeding and fighting is not without substantial risk) and in any case, as she argues, a

life not spent breeding can be spent on other things, other activities and explorations

that enable the rabbit to be just as natural or rabbit-like in their approach to them.

The argumentation has a certain resemblance to the human liberation from a life ofchildbirth and family.

Those other things and activities centre on the life with and home shared with

humans. An environment inside the home can be contrived in such a way that the

rabbit not only feels comfortable and safe, but can arrange things themselves to a

considerable degree. Most potently however Smith describes their mutual relatings

as governed, at least as far as she governed, by a ‘‘performance ethics’’: ‘‘I propose a

‘‘performance ethics,’’ which will both celebrate the human desire to dismantle the

boundary between humans and companion animals and acknowledge its difficulty’’(Smith 2003:183).

HRS Approach to Living With Rabbits

It is worth quoting Smith at length to gauge the extent to which the HRS member’s

homes and family life was disturbed by the new performance ethics:

The HRS did not simply manage difficult issues of control discursively. In fact,its members surrendered enormous control over their homes. Many HRS

members ‘‘rabbit-proofed’’ their houses, a playful word that euphemized

extensive modifications. In my own house, rabbit-proofing meant that most of

the furniture was made of metal, electrical cords were fastened behind furniture

or covered in hard plastic or metal tubing, and protective wood strips were

tacked on to wood baseboards and wood trim around closets and windows. In

addition, linoleum replaced carpet – or the carpet was abandoned to shredding

– and fencing enclosed bookcases. So-called ‘‘litterbox training’’ primarilymeant capitalizing on the rabbit habit of urinating consistently in one or two

152 A. Franklin


places. We simply put litterboxes where the rabbits decided to eliminate. Many

of us found it easier to change ourselves than the premises. At present, the

rabbit who lives in the bedroom is excavating my mattress. She bounces

around inside the dust cover and chews the wooden frame around the metal

springs. …. Indeed, I have heard HRS members laugh about taking turns with

their human partners sleeping on the wet spot in the bed; putting fencingaround their beds at night to keep rabbits from urinating on their pillow or

barbering their eyebrows; and catering to rabbits who nip ankles, box hands,

or trip-up human bodies when caretakers are too slow with the treats. Frankly,

I love this way of living, this version of ‘‘becoming animal.’’ It was the genius

of HRS founder Harriman to naturalize this life, so that those of us who came

after felt social permission to live as we had always wanted to. (Smith

2003:187–188.)

I can see the attraction. However, as with the examples of dogs and cats above, the

Smith household began to be changed not by their own performance ethics but by

rabbit agency: it both asserted itself and enlightened the humans in their

becomingrabbit. Here is Smith again:

Over time, we came to understand the principles of rabbit space and changed

our abodes even more. After many years of living with rabbits, I noticed that

they liked free corridors along perimeters. (Smith 2003:189.)

In addition rabbits like to pile ‘‘things’’ up in the middle of the room creating a mess

that was at the same time a rabbit ordered mess. In time Smith became attuned to

rabbit aesthetics and space management and began to enjoy the way rabbits could

make themselves at home in a dwelling shared with humans. Equally, in addition to

these housing issues, there emerged new interactions new intimacies and prehensions14:

In other major, minor, practical, and discursive ways did HRS membersexpress their vision of shared space. Interaction with rabbits was presented as

best happening on the floor. While the human lay quietly, the rabbit would

investigate, groom, climb and sit on the human, and allow him/herself to be

petted. In this way, rabbits were given freedom to initiate interaction, a key

component of relational partnerships (Harker, Collis & McNicholas 2000:191,

Smith 2003:189)

What is so clear from the writings of the HRS is the experimental nature of theirdomestic relations with rabbits. They are experimenting with how it might be

possible to live with rabbits differently and in so doing discovering new forms of

possible relationships between rabbits and humans.

Conclusion

In this paper I have demonstrated, in the light of findings from an Australian

national survey, the extent to which human housing, household and family life hasbecome entangled in new ways with companion species. I have also located these



changes in the individualized world of ‘‘liquid modernity’’ and ‘‘liquid love’’ and

have argued that new intensities of co-presence have offered opportunities for new

ways of relating to companion species and new ways of thinking about relating to

them. In particular, new relatings unearth the instability and unreliability of ‘‘species

being’’ and reveal companion animals to be exercising agency, creativity andcompanionability in reference to their humans. I offer examples of this and an

archetype: the Society of House Rabbits.

Formerly exclusively human homes, households and family formations are now

undergoing change as they become sites for human-animal cohabitations. This

affects housing choice and design, furnishing and the internal configuration of space.

Glibly, one might understand this transformative process as a sad substitution of

animal objects for proper human sociability and bonds; sad for both the humans

reduced to such straits and for animals so anthropomorphized. However I have

argued that these circumstances are not such that animals cannot express agency or

that humans cannot relate to them as significant others and that their co(a)gency

results in new effects. Humans and animals appear to make very good companions

to each other and of course many have been tempered by thousands of years of co-

evolution. But many (cane toads, rabbits) have not – but they did not take long to

realize the benefits of cohabitation. Cohabitation is expressed both semiotically and

sensually, in communication and in flesh. Both, probably, account for the

remarkable finding that living with a companion species can improve human health

and well being.

Notes

1. The study, an Australian Research Council funded project Sentiments and Risks: The Changing

Nature of Human-Animal Relations took place between 2000 and 2004. It combined a nationally

representative survey of 2000 respondents with a series of case studies focussed around veterinary

practice and relationships with wildlife. The survey was conducted over the telephone with

Australians over the age of 16 years and we randomized the choice of respondent in each household

by asking to speak with the person whose birthday was next. This guaranteed that all ages and

genders are represented. We also created statistically representative interview targets for all capital

cities and state rural areas. The main survey was administered by NCS Pearson and the survey

instrument was comprised of 13 key questions of which 5 established key data on the type of animals

respondents shared their lives with, 7 were Likert-type questions which investigated values and

practices with respect to animals generally and one question was comprised of a battery of sub-

questions obtaining key social , economic and demographic data. The overall response rate was 35%

(calculated as a proportion of answered calls).

2. See Michael (2000).

3. This derives from Deleuze & Guatari’s work on ‘‘becoming animal’’ in One Thousand Plateaus. This

involves a radical decentring of the subject through imagining and practicing what it might mean to

be another species.

4. See Ingold 1995; 2000.

5. Of course there are other species that we do not purposefully live with, that also matter:

woodworms, mice, rats, mites, etc.

6. According to Abercrombie, Hill & Turner (The Penguin dictionary of sociology, 2005) ontological

security ‘‘refers to the security, order and regularity that people feel in their lives, which are likely to

be most clearly experienced in a stable sense of personal identity over time’’. Clearly, divorce, spatial

mobility, labour market change and cultural change produce a churning of ontological security or

ontological insecurity.

7. Adrian Franklin (1999) Animals and modern cultures. London: Sage.

154 A. Franklin


8. Josh Schonwold. NIA will fund a study about loneliness, its physical risks. University of Chicago

chronicle 21(5), pp. 5–9.

9. BBC News (2005) Britain singled out as lonely nation, 27 March, 2000. London, UK.

10. Lindsay Tanner. Address to The Sydney Institute, May 4 1999.

11. Garrity, T. F. & Stallones, L. (1998) Effects of pet contact on human well-being: review of recent

research, in: C. Wilson & D. Turner (Eds), Companion animals in human health (Thousand Oaks,

CA: Sage).

12. Royal New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (2003). The truth about cats

and dogs. Press release, 14 May 2003.

13. Zentralarchiv fur Empirische Sozialforschung (1995) Machine readable codebook ZA Stut 2450:

ISSP 1993 environment (Koln: Zentralarchiv fur Empirische Sozialforschung).

14. By this I mean reaching out in a sensual and cognitive way to inscribe rabbits more closely in

human culture and practice.

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