Confrontations and Donations: Encounters between Homeless Pet Owners and the Public

Abstract

This study examines the interactions between homeless pet owners and the domiciled public with a focus on how the activities of pet ownership help construct positive personal identities. Homeless people are often criticized for having pets. They counter these attacks using open and contained responses to stigmatization. More often, they redefine pet ownership to incorporate how they provide for their animals, challenging definitions that require a physical home. Homeless pet owners thus create a positive moral identity by emphasizing that they feed their animals first and give them freedom that the pets of the domiciled lack. Through what we call “enabled resistance,” donations of pet food from the supportive public provide the resources to minimize the impact of stigmatization.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors acknowledge funding from the Dean's Fund for Excellence and the LEAP Associate Professor Growth Grant Program, both of the University of Colorado at Boulder. Thanks also go to Ilana Strubel, DVM, Michelle McAnanama, Maya DeNola, Morgan Weintraub, Karen Mahar, Eddie Gloria, and Cliff Petit Homme.

NOTES

Notes

¹ Snow and Anderson also found a third pattern of identity talk not relevant for this analysis, which they refer to as “fictive storytelling.”

² The term “pet” is contested because of its subtext of human dominion over animals. “Companion animal” is often preferred because it connotes the active role of animals in relationships with humans (see Irvine 2004 on this debate). For related reasons, the term “guardian” is currently preferred to “owner.” In this article, we use all four terms interchangeably, either for convenience or to be consistent with their use in interviews.

³ In an unpublished survey of domiciled citizens, we found that attitudes toward pet ownership among the homeless were approximately evenly split (76/147 in favor). In the only other extant study to survey the public on this issue, Taylor et al. (2004) found that 74 percent (compared with our 51 percent) of those polled in Cambridge, United Kingdom, believed the homeless “should be allowed pets if they want them.”

⁴ “Spange” means to beg for “spare change.” The term is commonly used among youth, in particular.