This dissertation argues that the destabilization of species categories over the course of the nineteenth century generated vital new approaches to animal figuration in British poetry and prose. Taxonomized by the followers of Linnaeus and organized into moral hierarchies by popular zoology, animals entered nineteenth-century British culture as fixed types, differentiated by the hand of God and invested with allegorical significance. By the 1860s, evolutionary theory had dismantled the idea of an ordered, cleanly subdivided “animal kingdom,” leading to an attendant problem of meaning: How could animals work as figures—how could they signify in any coherent way—when their species identities were no longer stable? Examining works in a wide range of genres, I argue that the problem of species produced modes of figuration that grapple with—and in many ways, embrace—the increasing categorical and referential messiness of nonhuman creatures. My first chapter centers on dog poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Michael Field, in which tropes of muteness express the category-crossings of dogs and the erotic ambiguities of the human-pet relationship. Chapter 2 looks at midcentury novels by Charles Dickens and Charlotte Brontë, arguing that the trope of metonymy—a key trope of both novels and pets—expresses the semantic wanderings of animals and their power to subvert the identities of humans. Chapter 3 examines two works of literary nonsense, Charles Kingsley’s The Water-Babies and Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, arguing that they invert and critique prior genres that contained and controlled the queerness of creaturely life—including, in Kingsley’s case, aquarium writing, which literally and figuratively domesticated ocean ecologies in the Victorian imaginary. In my fourth and fifth chapters, I turn to Tennyson’s Idylls of the King and H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau, two late-nineteenth-century works that explore the destabilization of the human species while still fighting against the overwhelming irresistibility of both human exceptionalism and an anthropocentric, category-based worldview. Throughout the dissertation, I argue that these representational approaches achieve three major effects that represent a break from the more indexical, allegorical forms of animal figuration that were standard when the century began. Rather than reducing animals to static types, they foreground the alterity and queerness of individual creatures. At the same time, they challenge the very idea of individuality as such, depicting creatures—including the human—tangled in irreducible webs of ecological enmeshment. Most of all, they call into question their own ability to translate the creaturely world into language, destabilizing the Adamic relationship between names and things and allowing animals to mean in ways that subvert the agency of humans. By figuring animals differently, these texts invite us to see the many compelling possibilities—ontological, relational, ethical—in a world unstructured by the taxonomical gaze.

This thesis focuses on the relationship of various actors with wild animals, specifically wild predators protected by law, in rural and protected areas of south-central Chile (IX Araucanía Region). It is based on a 12 month period of ethnographic fieldwork, distributed in the Huerquehue National Park, a private protected area ('Cañi Sanctuary') and a small farm close to the Villarrica National Park. Participant observation was developed with park rangers, conservation researchers and small-scale farmers. Most of these were also interviewed through in-depth, semi structured approaches, as other key informants, mainly neighbouring local farmers and government officials. My aim is to understand anthropologically how humans and animals interact, considering various contexts, and contributing to Chilean academia in better understanding the situation of endangered species in the country. The main theoretical points I argue are that human-animal relations are inscribed in a broader environmental approach, regarding classifications about the natural world, humanity's place in it, and their separation. Thus, the study analyses participants' environmental engagements and their relations with wild protected predators and other animals, showing how practical engagements help to 'piece together' the surroundings and other creatures. Considering uncertainty and fuzzy boundaries regarding implied classifications and fleeting experiences with animals, the analysis then focuses on the interpretation of animal tracks and traces and tracking, as flexible and open ended engagements with the environment and its clues, connected to the semiotic concept of 'abduction'. Finally, I return to reflections concerning a fluctuating world, crossed by uncertainties and categories' limitations. Using the concept of 'the uncanny', I explore alternative interpretations of relations with animals and the environment, connected with strangeness and unpredictability, where regular knowledge and ontological assumptions are challenged. I finish by stressing the fertility of being open to complex knowledge, related with a fluctuating and uncanny world that resists well-defined categorisations.

Knowledge of the deeper meanings of attachment to companion animals is limited, particularly in terms of older adults. This study employed a modified grounded theory method, a phenomenological lens and a life course perspective to gather and analyze data garnered from individual interviews and panel discussions in order to investigate the multiple dimensions of older adult men’s relationships with their companion animal dogs. Individual audio-recorded in-depth interviews and repeated panel discussions with a sub-group of the participants, convened as a panel over a three-month period, explored behavioral and emotional manifestations of attachment and the emotional bond to their companion animal dogs and the changing nature of that attachment and bond over their life span. Analysis involved open, axial and selective coding of transcripts to reveal underlying patterns within the data. Outcomes included movement toward a theory of companion animal attachment for older adult men as well as insight into the role of dogs in development of older adult men’s identities. This dissertation offers insight into the deeper understanding of the human-animal bond resulting in enhancing quality of life for both older adult male pet owners and their companion animal dogs.

I Sverige finns drygt en miljon hundar, vilket ger siffran en hund i vart femte hushåll. Främsta syftet med föreliggande studie är att se vad som är den positivt verksamma kärnan i umgänget mellan människa och hund, utifrån vad hundägare subjektivt berättar. Enligt Grounded Theory analyserades sex djupintervjuer. Resultaten visar framförallt en Personlig vinst för den enskilde hundägaren i umgänget med sin hund. Den Personliga vinsten består av de sex delvinsterna Säkerhet, Kamratskap, Kunskap, Aktivitet, Socialt och Hälsa. En slutsats är att hunden påverkar hundägaren på ett positivt sätt, eftersom den ger en personlig vinst i form av tillfredsställelse av många av människans grundläggande behov.

Humans and dogs have lived among each other in mutually beneficial relationships for thousands of years. In recent years, this human-animal bond has emerged as a catalyst for animal-assisted activities and therapies that may benefit those with disabilities, including children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). ASD are characterized by qualitative impairments in social interaction and communication and restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities. The nonverbal and nonjudgmental nature of dogs may be non-threatening and easier for children with ASD to decode, which may decrease anxiety and facilitate social bonding. Further, with their roles as social lubricants/transitional objects and natural foci of interest, dogs may facilitate social interaction between children with ASD and other people. Using a single case, multiple baseline design across participants, this study investigated whether multiple semi-structured interactions with dogs would increase social and communicative behaviors and decrease restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior in children. Although only two had statistically significant results, all three participants showed responses to intervention in the hypothesized directions. This study supports the position that children with ASD may benefit from participating in animal-assisted activities with dogs.

Elderly people are at high risk for conditions associated with inactivity, and lack of motivation is an important factor contributing to this inactivity. It is believed that a dog can provide the necessary motivation to get a senior citizen up and moving because it needs attention as well as someone to feed it and take it for walks. The objective of this five-week prospective cohort study was to determine if registered therapy dogs made available for informal visits to a cohort of retirement community elderly would motivate the subjects to increase their activity levels by comparing the number of steps taken in the presence of the exposure (opportunity to visit with dog) versus steps taken when unexposed (no opportunity to visit with dog). A secondary objective was to measure possible improvements in mental and physical health scores over the course of the study. The steps were measured each week with a pedometer and the happiness and depression scores were obtained through a questionnaire given at the beginning and at the end of the study. Twenty subjects agreed to participate, and there was an increasing trend in the number of steps over calendar weeks, but not an increase with exposure level (number of dog-visits). Happiness (p = .53) and depression (p = .083) scores did not significantly change during the study. Increased step counts each week may have been associated with other motivating factors such as competition among residents and individual desire to achieve higher counts each week.

Thesis (M.A.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2001. / Bibliography: leaves 222-229.

Thesis (M.A.)--Denver Seminary, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-62).

In Hong Kong’s schools, it is common to see meat-based lunches and snacks, photos of captive sea creatures in textbooks, dissection of animals in Science class, meat, dairy, eggs, wool in Home Economics class, animal-tested products in washrooms and so on. Schools seem to have (un)intentionally encouraged young learners’ ignorance of animal natures and ‘presumption of superiority’ over non-human animals. However, schooling may have increased the ‘moral debt’ to only some, instead of all, animals. If empathy can be considered a skill, does exposure to education ‘upskill’ or ‘deskill’ youth in Hong Kong? Through explicit, implicit and hidden curriculum, do schools preserve/remove (if empathy is innate) or create/destroy (if empathy is acquired) empathy toward companion animals, farm animals, captive animals, wild animals, in-group humans, outgroup humans (all, some, or none)? This paper examines whether students over the age of 19 believe (to a larger extent than students between the age of 13 and 18 and/or students between the age of 5 and 12) that all species have the capacity for utility and suffering. Assuming higher scores mean higher levels of empathy, which age groups are highly empathetic toward most/all twelve animals, and which are more prone to speciesism? Moreover, assuming in-group humans’ sub-circles are the closest to the center of each student’s moral circle, how far will other animals’ sub-circles be from these two? In addition, which emotion is the twelve animals most frequently associated with by Hong Kong students? Furthermore, according to the ranked animals in emotions in general as well as in different emotions (in each age group), what element(s) create(s) more empathy in students? / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

With a particular interest in birdwatchers and dog walkers, this case study explored place meanings of users at Westmount Summit Woods, a multiple-use urban forest located just west of downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. A document analysis was conducted on the research site, followed by data collected through online questionnaire. A total of 120 users participated in the online questionnaire, of which included birdwatchers (n=44), dog walkers (n=61), and the broader community (n=15). Three themes relating to place meaning were interpreted: (1) Attachment to and Preference for; (2) (Re)connection with Self and Others; and (3) Conflict Between and Within. Findings suggest encounters played key roles in the formation of social identity, capital, and conflict. Questions regarding access to and use of public space, how humans and animals are placed vis-à-vis one another, and ways to build civic culture out of difference were addressed. Following on from these findings, recommendations for outdoor recreation management and future research were offered.