(Submitted by Christen Giblin)
Picture this:
At the county fair, the annual “Catch a Puppy” event is underway. A group of puppies are released into a pen along with six- to fifteen-year- old youths. Eager for an animal of their own to raise, the kids compete with each other to grab and hold onto a puppy, sometimes suspending it or swinging it in the air by one leg in order to secure it. Barking and howling fill the air as the young dogs struggle to get free. By the end of the event several puppies have been captured and subdued, at least enough for them to be carried off by the victorious children. Onlookers laugh and congratulate the youths on their prowess.
If you’re like me, this sequence of events sounds horrifying. Yet all I’ve done is substitute puppies for piglets in this scenario. Replace the puppies with baby pigs and the narrative describes an event featured at the Wood County Fair for at least fifty years: the Catch a Pig Contest. If it would be cruel to treat puppies like this, why is it all right to catch piglets this way?
That’s the question thirty-year Bowling Green resident Monica Lynn wants us to ask ourselves. Every year, kids line up to participate in a contest that she—and many experts—believes traumatizes the young pigs involved. Not just animal rights activists but veterinary professionals point out the emotional distress and potential for injury that Catch a Pig involves.
According to Nedim C. Buyukmihci, Emeritus Professor of Veterinary Medicine at University of California, Davis, who reviewed photographs of the event, “…it was evident that the piglets were roughly handled, had their weight supported by being suspended by their hind legs and were swung in the air. The facial expressions of the animals denoted extreme fear. Being suspended by their hind legs made the pigs subject to injury, particularly damage to ligaments and tendons or even dislocation of joints…
“Pigs are prey animals and they experience abject fear when subject to situations which they can only interpret as potentially fatal, including being chased by a predator such as a human being. These events cause considerable suffering for the pigs and put them at risk of injury. They also appear to violate the principles of animal welfare put forth by the American Veterinary Medicine Association…which states than animals should be cared for in ways that minimize fear, pain, stress, and suffering.”
The Catch a Pig Contest is generally viewed as good, clean—if a little rowdy—fun. Supporters tout the practical skills kids learn in subduing an energetic young animal. In winning a piglet to raise to adulthood, they say, youths are learning responsibility, and saving the animal from life on a factory farm. Besides, all pigs squeal, don’t they? Surely that’s not a sign of distress!
Yes it is. Visit a farm sanctuary, says Monica, and you won’t hear pigs squealing. Piglets and pigs living in a normal environment simply don’t make that sound. The noises you hear during Catch a Pig are not normal vocalizations: they are cries of terror. According to Monica’s research, experienced pig sanctuary directors agree.
Yet the kids chase the pigs anyway, and their parents cheer them on. Just what are our children learning here?
They are learning to ignore a fellow creature’s distress, say Monica and her colleagues. “We are de-sensitizing the children to animals’ feelings,” she believes. Yes, animals do have feelings, as anyone who has cared for a pet or a farm animal knows. How can we enjoy an animal’s affection and loyalty in one context and ignore its distress in another? Aren’t both reactions real?
When children torment animals systematically a red flag goes up for psychologists. They regard repeated and cold-blooded animal mistreatment as a frequent symptom of sociopathy. According to Monica, the FBI is currently creating a national registry of animal abusers because this behavior is such a reliable predictor of anti- social behavior. Nobody would claim that Catch a Pig participants are budding sociopaths. But is ignoring an animal’s distress something we want to encourage?
Youth have raised animals under the aegis of 4-H and FFA for decades. Neither Monika nor her animal rights colleagues disputes that caring for an animal teaches powerful lessons. (Sometimes the lessons are bittersweet: we’ve all observed teens who’ve just auctioned an animal at the county fair fight back tears as they hand them over for eventual slaughter.)
But raising a farm animal involves getting it to trust you. Is running down a terrified baby animal in the mud the way to start this process? The quarrel isn’t with the tradition of kids winning young animals to raise; it’s with this brutal way of competing for them. Why not have youth stack hay bales or compete in some other skill in order to win an animal? Not only the animals but also the kids may be harmed in the process. Ohio and Michigan have seen threes cases of youth catching diseases from the terrified piglets, who often urinate and defecate on them in their terror. “This is not a safe event,” Monica points out.
Her campaign to end Catch a Pig began in 2015. She spoke to Wood County Fair Board officials at that time, and gathered over 3,000 signatures from those who also oppose the event. A second petition, circulated in 2017, garnered 5,000 signatures.
Despite this public support, however, Catch a Pig continues. Changing a custom is hard, even though no one is asking the fair board to turn its back on the tradition of kids competing for an animal to raise. But as Nick Petikas, Youth Sports Coordinator of the Central Ohio YMCA wrote in an e-mail: “ those piglets …breathe, see, smell, feel, fear and love just as any other species does on this planet. Deep down we are all compassionate, loving beings. Deep down, there is a reason why we take our children apple-picking and not to slaughterhouses.” Teresa Landon, Executive Director of the Ohio Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals also stated in an e-mail: “It is senseless to subject any animal to such needless inhumane treatment for the sake of so-called human entertainment. People would be outraged if these were dogs or cats. There is no difference.”
When we ignore the feelings of our fellow creatures, when we trivialize violence, we all lose. Watch the terrified expressions of the piglets at Catch a Pig, observe the audience’s glee at their distress, and ask yourself just who are the animals and who are the supposedly sentient beings here.
(Monica Lynn encourages all those who object to Catch a Pig to contact the Wood County Fair Board to share their views.)
