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.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00As a country, we love dogs.
00:07180 pounds, none below.
00:10Oh my God!
00:11Dogs are children.
00:12They're part of the family.
00:16There's a growing market when it comes to pet clothing and accessories.
00:19Oh, he's famous!
00:20A facelift for dogs.
00:23We might think of dogs as sort of occupying now a border species between animal and human.
00:31What? Seriously?
00:34It is civil rights violations.
00:36It's set up on people.
00:37It's on...
00:38Can you believe this?
00:39...their pets.
00:41Our relationships with animals offer this window...
00:43That's like raw.
00:44...into the human heart and the human mind that's just stunningly...
00:49Bite, bite, bite, bite!
00:50...intense.
00:52I communicate to them like an energy, like a soul.
00:56I know my duty as a mother.
00:59Under law, pets are considered property.
01:02It's a family member.
01:05Ten million dollars can't bring Diesel back.
01:07We can take action against the government and win.
01:13They don't belong in this world.
01:16I call it the Me Too movement for dogs.
01:18Whoa!
01:19We fetishize these animals.
01:20There's my little boy.
01:21The dog has a lawyer.
01:24It's animals perceived as legal persons.