Op de bres voor de trekhond: De dierenwelzijnsboodschap van het wezenverhaal en de dierenautobiografie in de periode 1864-1910

Abstract

This article on the representation of draft dogs in Dutch realistic animal stories from the period 1864-1910 explores how underlying genres of the animal autobiography and the sentimental orphan story interact with the way the draft dog problem is addressed and made part of a civilization offensive. In order to get the animal welfare message across, these genres draw the dog into our moral community in their own, specific way. The orphan story calls for a better treatment of draft dogs through the portrayal of a child protagonist’s affection and compassion for the animal. The animal autobiography uses a pedigree dog narrator which takes up a mediating role between the human reader and his animal self, within a circulation plot that sheds light on the contrasting lives of domestic dogs and draft dogs, who coexisted in the Netherlands for most of the nineteenth century. Both genres find the solution for the draft dog problem in the ideal of domesticity, which made the dog the perfect housemate for the middle class.