Dogs Are People Too
From dog-lawyers in Detroit to clone-farms in Iowa, "Dogs Are People Too" road-trips America to follow a landmark civil rights trial over the killing of a dog. The mother of the deceased dog wants to bring those who killed her boy to justice. On her journey she steps into a world of dog-lawyers and canine rights that is bubbling under the surface of America. Her trial spotlights a conflict - whilst Americans love their dogs as family members, legally they own them as property, with no more rights than a table or chair. We look at what rights our beloved dogs really have, whilst inadvertently challenging what right we have to own them. What follows is a four-legged civil rights movement that would see dogs considered not as property but as non-human persons. America is asking a question resonating around the world - from Orangutan-personhood in Argentina to Octopuses reclassified as sentient in the U.K. - is it time we reconsider the nature of our relationship with animals?
Starring Amy Dejonghe, Chris Olson, Prof. Hal Herzog
Director Hendrik Faller