Dogs in the Economy and Operation of the Peculiar Institution: Evidence from Slave State Case Law

An anti-slavery pamphleteer who called himself Iron Gray wrote: “On merciless fangs, the Slaveholder feels his ‘property’ hangs.” In 1920, West Virginia Judge J.C. McWhorter, in perhaps the most influential essay ever written about bloodhound testimony, regretted that the history of tracking dogs was so intertwined with the history of slavery, but argued that at least when a dog tracked a slave, the slave could be identified by the master he ran...

Read More

Tenants with PTSD Can Keep Dogs for Emotional Support in No-Pet Buildings and Condos

Three years ago we wrote an article for the American Bar Association, Service and Support Animals in Housing Law, in which we argued that the detailed rules that the Department of Housing and Urban Development had issued for HUD-assisted housing should apply generally to persons with disabilities seeking to live with assistance animals. Many courts have taken positions similar to ours, but a review of recent cases demonstrates that many landlords and condominium associations with no-pet policies continue to resist efforts of tenants to live with...

Read More

Audubon's Dogs: Hunting in the American South Before the Civil War

John James Audubon, in his three-volume treatise, The Vivaparous Quadrupeds of North America (1846), only identifies two indigenous dogs of North America, the Hare-Indian Dog (Canis familiaris var. lagopus) and the Esquimaux Dog (Canis familiaris var. borealis), though he does describe a number of wolves and foxes. Nevertheless, in describing a wide range of animals that are hunted, he provides a wealth of detail regarding the hunting practices,...

Read More