Cripping Multispecies Care: Explorations of Disability, Ableism, and Speciesism in Multispecies Homes

Increasingly intersecting work in disability and animal studies reveals the interconnection of oppressive hierarchies and how these operate within and across species. This article extends such dialogues into the home, considering the ways that disability, ableism, and speciesism show up in multispecies care. Pulling from thematic analysis of twenty semi-structured interviews exploring dog-human caregiving practices, we argue that humans make sense of their care relationships with dogs in ways which both reinforce and “muddy” ableist logics within the home. We explore six themes: (1) intimate care work and disabled animal companions; (2) breeds and capital; (3) pathologization of “problem” dog behaviour; (4) animal care work and disabled human companions; (5) trauma and recovery in and across species; and (6) intelligence and madness in interspecies relationships. Overall, mobile and place-based interviews with twenty participants on caregiving in multispecies homes reveal language and discourses that reproduce ableist and anthropocentric understandings of, and relationships with, animals, alongside transgressive relationalities grounded in reciprocity, vulnerability, and care.