Monster is an adult pit bull, muscular and grey, who is impounded in a large animal shelter in Los Angeles. Like many other dogs at the shelter, Monster is associated with marginalized humans and assumed to embody certain behaviors because of his breed. And like approximately one million shelter animals each year, Monster will be killed. The Lives and Deaths of Shelter Animals takes us inside one of the country's highest-intake animal shelters. Katja M. Guenther witnesses the dramatic variance in the narratives assigned different animals, including Monster, which dictate their chances for survival. She argues that these inequalities are powerfully linked to human ideas about race, class, gender, ability, and species. Guenther deftly explores internal hierarchies, breed discrimination, and importantly, instances of resistance and agency.
Katja M. Guenther is Associate Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of California, Riverside, and author of Making Their Place (Stanford, 2010).
Table of Contents
1. Monster's World 2. Helping/Policing/Killing 3. The Myth of the Irresponsible Owner 4. The Struggle for Shelter Animal Survival 5. The Transformative Power of Grief 6. The Peculiar Problem of Pit Bulls 7. Animals' Resistance to Shelter Rule 8. Waiting, Wondering, and Wavering 9. A New Revolution
