In this week’s readings, I was upset by the many different memories that came to mind as I read. I have had many different animals in my life from dogs, cats, hamsters, horses, cows, goats, pigs, bulls, chickens, and even a hermit crab, each of who had a great impact on my life. I find myself agreeing that animals have agency in humans lives because I believe that we have an impact in their lives. I feel that since we are part of the animal kingdom ourselves then we are all interconnected in a way.

Animals are not just beings to be dominated, they are intelligent in their own sense. I look at famous animals in history, some of them more famous than others, and see human events that could not have been possible without the help of animals. Look at the space race of the 1950’s and 1960’s; America’s sending astronauts into space would not have been possible without there first being a test flight with a chimpanzee.

The United States Navy uses bottle nose dolphins to search underwater for a variety of threats and even lost items.  Law enforcement agencies use dogs to prevent threats to humans from other humans, be it searching for explosives, guns, drugs, and a variety of other purposes. I feel that animals are so important to humans in many ways other than pure companionship that there is no way that we, as humans could not keep our need for them unchecked.

Animals absolutely have agency in history, right from the outset. I mean, even a serpent/snake used language to trick Eve into eating the apple in the Garden of Eden. Many different cultures have a creation story that includes animals in them, therefore, animals equal agency.