Enhancing Quality of Life for Dogs and Cats in Confined Situations

Animal welfare has piqued the attention of states, non-governmental organisations, and individuals all over the world. Lynette Hart, an animal rights advocate, and other panelists in the Enhancing Quality of Life for Dogs and Cats in Confined Situations study provide a comprehensive overview of the situation. Hart states in her article that the quality of life for confined animals must be considered in order to ensure their health. Dogs and cats, in particular, should be raised in enabling conditions to ensure proper development and growth when they communicate with humans. In addition, certain protocols must be followed when using such animals in laboratory testing, which the article intends to suggest.
Further, Hart recommends that it is significant to redefine the scales on which the quality of life for animals could be measured. Hart a gives a clear outline and builds her credibility by providing personal facts supported by reputable sources. She cites impressive statistics and facts, which remarkably employs emotional appeals.

Throughout her piece, Hart consults various reliable sources to ascertain her credibility and appeal to ethos, while building her premise. The consulted works include Rochlitz (2005) “The Welfare of Cats,” Hewson (2003) ”What is Animal Welfare,” McMillan (2000) ”Quality of Life in Animals” among other sources. Citing these and other works not only gives Hart credibility but also proves that she did her research. It also supports her work by providing facts, statistics, and expert opinion, which supports the article’s claim. Additionally, Hart employs personal examples of her previous experiences in animal welfare issues as a backing for her arguments. Similarly, this approach also shows that the experience and a first-hand encounter she had on the issue cannot be overemphasized.

In addition to her ethos appeals, Hart embraces firm appeals to logos. This endeavor is characterized by factual statements and statistics with a logical flow of ideas. Her description of the situation surrounding the issue of animal welfare and stating figure makes her arguments remain substantive. For example, she argued that in the first paragraph that ”85% of pet owners who were interviewed considered pets to be a part of the family (Hart 83). While this furthers her appeal to ethos, it also credits her specificity and ability to give factual and substantiated opinions. In fact, she proceeds by stating that ”it is projected that in, pet owners in the United States spent almost $36 billion on products and services for their animal companions,” (Hart 83) Indeed, Hart substantiates her view by citing sources where research was previously conducted. She cites the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association (2005), which is one of her sources regarding the statistics. These examples of statistics are just a sample of the many that Hart employs to strengthen her claim.

Along with strong logos appeals, Hart excellently makes appeals to pathos within the text. For instance, in the introduction section, she uses several emotionally-charged phrases and wording, which gives a sympathetic image. She clarified that ”this emotional and financial investment has not only influenced how we speak about these interspecies relationships (e.g., the ‘human-animal bond’) but has also promoted a keen interest in the welfare of these animals.” In this example, Hart tries to stir emotional connection between the reader and her view on the topic of animal welfare. She also alluded that ”the concept of quality of life (QoL) has gained prominence as humans evaluate their own lives, and t has increasingly been extrapolated to the pets that live with them.” (Hart 84) Use of such polite statements aims at evoking a positive sympathy in the reader, to move them towards improving the quality of life for their pets and embrace best practices of animal welfare. Other than evoking positive feelings towards animals, Hart also ensures that readers’ negative emotions are aroused towards the practice of careless pet owners.

Moreover, Hart employs other rhetorical devices such as contrast and comparison to ensure her readers understand her arguments better. To make it more effective, she uses tabulation to compare the quality of living for humans and animals. For example, to bring the point of political and social environment home, Hart emphasized that humans guided by ”political stability, crime, law enforcement, etc.” On the other hand, confined animals would require ”consistency and quality of husbandry.” At the same time, humans have a sociocultural environment that is guided by quality ”censorship, limitations on personal freedom, etc.,” while the quality of life for the confined animals is governed by ”Companionship (human and animal), social enrichment, personal choice, etc.” The use of these stylistic devices helps her in achieving her goal of ensuring the audience understands clearly on matters of quality of life for animals. Further, she uses questioning and rhetorical questions to engage the readers in her work (Foss 26). For example, she poses questions such as ”how can one define the quality of life for dogs and cats in confined situations?” The question would help capture the reader’s attention to continue reading and pay attention so that one can figure out answers from the text (Faigley and Jack 43).

On the contrary, towards the end of the article, the degree of effective rhetoric diminishes in appeals to ethos. Hart focuses on the opinions of her panel or co-authors and puts less emphasis on the content. While she tries to acknowledge the other contributors to the article, the sequence does not flow smoothly since such could have been done at the introduction as well. The sense of pathos also diminishes since the less emotion-evoking content is limited towards the end. However, it still stands out that the rhetorical strategies she employed were effective despite the few inconsistencies. In particular, the introduction and the body were remarkably done and adequately cited.

In conclusion, Lynette Hart begins her article with persuasive arguments that she supports with facts and statistics. To boost her credibility, Hart cites various reputable sources to support her premise. She effectively uses appeal to ethos and pathos and can easily convince the reader to emulate good examples of animal welfare practice. Also, her proper use of appeal to pathos evokes an emotional attachment to her work by readers. In other words, she mixes various rhetorical devices such to ensure her message is easily understood by the reader. Despite the fact that her appeal to pathos diminishes towards the end of the article, it is still convincing to the reader because of the way she arranges her work chronologically. Her acknowledgment of co-authors and the panel of experts also give her credit concerning her ability to recognize others and appreciate other people’s works. Her choice of the topic of animal welfare is a critical tool to attract readers’ attention since it is a contemporary and global issue. With such placement of content, she manages to employ appropriate rhetorical strategies.

Works Cited

Hart, B. L., et al. “Enhancing quality of life for dogs and cats in confined situations.” Animal Welfare-Potters Bar Then Wheathampstead- 16 (2007): 83.

Foss, Sonja K. Rhetorical criticism: Exploration and practice. Waveland Press, 2017.

Faigley, Lester, and Jack Selzer. Good reasons with contemporary arguments. Pearson, 2017.