I eat beef. I eat pork. I eat chicken. I’m not a big meat eater but I do like a steak(no veal), bacon,ham and chicken occasionally. We’ve grown,killed and butchered beef and hogs and chickens in the past. (They did have a good life up until the end, by the way)
I will NEVER eat dog. NO never!!! I wish I could banish those pictures on this thread from my brain. seriously.
For whatever reason, cultural,etc. … it ain’t gonna happen.
I will also never keep a “pet” that requires the feeding of either live animals or frozen “humanely” killed babies. As a vet tech that was the only job I ever flat out refused to do- feed the raptors in our rehabilitation ward.
While I love my cats and dogs (and you can tell it–if I get down on the floor to try and do Yoga, all four suddenly want to lay down on and with me–“Oh, Boy, snuggle time with MOM!”) I don’t have a problem with someone eating cats and dogs or feeding them to snakes–as long as they are humanely put down first. I see so many lying dead beside the road where some *&^%$#@! dumped them to starve and then be run over that I think any humane death would be far better. You really don’t want to know the number of abandoned and injured animals I’m taken to the humane society (if I could’ve kept and cared for them all I would’ve).
Brings to mind the brough-ha-ha that happened, what…5 years ago? Some “shelf art” cats (the kind of thing you put on a shelf to look good) were exported from china, covered with real fur. Looked like a real cat sleeping on a shelf. Bunch of people bought 'em, were amazed at how well the fur mimiced cat fur…then someone realized there was no way to dye rabbit fur to match a tabby pattern that well.
Peronally, I didn’t see a problem with it myself–as long as the chinese are going to eat cat, why shouldn’t they find a use for the fur? Beats throwing it in a landfill.
Well apparently, the folks who bought the shelf art thinking it was covered in rabbit fur thought it was OK. Then were upset about it being cat fur. To me it just seemed so contradictory.
(That is an awful cute pic, BTW!)
When I was growing up we understood that most of the animals we had were for eating eventually. But til then, we played with the goats and rabbits and chickens and turkeys–even named most of them. All were well treated and understood what a scratch behind the ears of a gentle stroke of the hand was. They didn’t go hungry, or cold, nor were they mistreated or afraid of us–usually came running, in fact. And when the time came to eat them, they were dispatched quickly and painlessly.
The thing that seems flat hypocritical to me is the folks who want a cat or dog, then just dump it. We’ve just adopted a kitten my son found in the yard starving and dehydrated–and with such clean long hair that he had to have been kept indoors. I live on a highway–he’d’ve been hit the first day he was out there. The sad thing is that he’s an absolutely beautiful silver tabby–the folks who had him could’ve found him a home so bloody easily!
(sigh) I know, we’re beating a dead horse here–we’re ALL animal lovers with a single difference in point of view on the same subject. Guess I’ve just got my dander up on hte subject of animal neglect and abandonment right now.
When I was growing up we understood that most of the animals we had were for eating eventually. But til then, we played with the goats and rabbits and chickens and turkeys–even named most of them. All were well treated and understood what a scratch behind the ears of a gentle stroke of the hand was. They didn’t go hungry, or cold, nor were they mistreated or afraid of us–usually came running, in fact. And when the time came to eat them, they were dispatched quickly and painlessly.
Same here.
I too have rescued more than a few of the animals that folks thought no more of than to abandon them. Our 16 plus year old Australian Shepherd is one. The worst was when I was vet teching and someone dumped a newly born litter of pups, umbilical cords still wet, at our front door one morning when we got to work. I hand raised all 10 and found them good homes.
I feel it would be much better to just euthanaize them than to dump them- but then the lousey excuse for a human who does this feels much better about themselves I guess, thinking that they really didn’t kill them. Huh!
I can see people of means going to a vet to have unwanted pets euthanised, but around here there is a minimum charge of $50 per animal, and that’s only if you can find a vet who will do it (rare). An unwanted litter of 10 kittens would be a sizable investment for someone on a restricted budget.
In the country people would just put the kittens in a pillow case, take them down to the nearest stream, drown and then bury the whole litter. In the city, do-gooders would have them arrested for doing the same thing.
It’s not hard to see how people can find themselves in a position where taking the animal(s) out to the country and dumping them on a roadside becomes a viable option.
I knew they ate dog but I had no idea they did things like that.
It really goes to the center of what we are talking about here.
I believe just about everyone here will look at these images with shock and remorse for the “poor” puppies yet will look upon big cleaned salmon or geese, thinking about how good they will taste, never considering the terror that fish or fowl most likely went through.
The barbaric part is killing the cat.
For what purpose? so you can have a snake as a pet?
Seems not a good enough reason to kill animals.
By the way, the term ‘euthanasia’ doesn’t apply.
Euthanasia requires that the killing be done for
the sake of the animal euthanised because
death is believed to be a good thing for him/her.
Killing a creature as painlessly as you can so as
to feed her to your snake isn’t euthansia.
One needs to be careful about that word.
If I arrange a painless death for grandma so I
can collect her will and donate it for a good purpose,
saving many more lives than I take,
that’s murder, not euthanasia.
Maybe there are reasons that justify killing animals,
but it’s kind of hard to believe it’s justified
so you can have a particular sort of pet.
This raises interesting issues of the intervention of an ethical agent. Posit that snakes will eat kittens in nature. Why is problematic to feed kittens to a pet snake? The same thing happens. Do you think it’s wrong to feed a cat chicken, knowing that feral cats will kill and eat chicks? The only part that’s different seems to be that in one instance a person has intervened, in another not.
The classic philosophical case to discuss this is that of the guy at the railroad switch who realizes that a train is running wild and can’t be stopped. If he does nothing, the train will barrel into the station and kill 100 people. If he throws the switch, it will go down the maintenance branch line and kill 10 railroad workers. Should he (may he) throw the switch? The parallel becomes more apparent if assume that equal numbers of people will die, whether he throws the switch or not.
(I am not sure that the term euthanasia implies a benefit to the person who is killed. The term is applied, after all, to the Nazi’s Aktion T4.)
Jim, do you have any pets? If so, are they vegetarian?
Bloomie’s point is an interesting one. Hard to pick any ground that doesn’t, at times, shake.
(I would have quoted Jim directly, but it meant going back to the previous page, and I just can’t do that page again. The eye-shielding is getting difficult.)
There are many young people in the Orient who would disagree with you.
The difference between feeding chickens to your kitten, and feeding kittens to your snake is that the chickens are only allowed to live by humans for the soul and express purpose of being a food source for other animals, including us. It is what we bred them for. However, kitties are soft and cute and have big, expressive eyes, and they make a purring noise when you pat them. They were not bred by us for the exress purpose of being a food source for other animals. They were bred to be pets to keep us free from the depredations of mice.
There is no relevant example in nature that you can use to compare. Cats would not likely come in contact with chickens in the wild as they are not naturally from the same areas. The same applies to most snakes kept as pets, especially the corn snakes under discussion, as neither chickens nor kitties are indigenous to the areas where these corn snakes come from. In other words, all these scenarios are entirely manmade.
This reminds me, recently, in my language class, we came across the word usagi. One person said it meant rabbit, the other said it was a bunny. The teacher wondered what the difference was between the two words and after some time define it, one lady said:
“Bunnies are cute, they are often pets and have names like fluffy”
“Rabbits are what you eat and attack your flowers and vegetables in the garden”
The teacher thought for a moment and said, “We use usagi for both.”
Cats would not likely come in contact with chickens in the wild as they are not naturally from the same areas.
I don’t know where chickens came from originally back in the olden days, but around here, and on any true family farm, cats and chickens do co-exist, wandering around the farm doing their thing. I can’t ever remember having a cat that bothered the chickens- rabbits, mice, rats etc, but not chickens. Unfortunately some dogs do like to kill chickens. Those (the dogs) don’t last long and usually meet an early end by farmer’s rifle.
You do have a point in that our view of what creatures are fit for our consumption is all a matter of perspective.
It isn’t just the Chinese who eat dog. North American Indians were no strangers to boiled dog, especially when there was nothing better to hand. Italians eat horses. There’s all sorts of things that we get squeemish about that people in other parts of the world laugh at. Best to grin and bear it.
A Chinaman was on his first visit to Washington. He was feeling a bit peckish and spotted a stand on a street corner with a sign over it that said “HotDogs”. When he was handed his order, he regarded it for a while and then said: “Well, that is the only part of the dog we don’t eat.”
