Letters to the Editor
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Dogs and Cats For Food
I worked in China from 1998 until 2001 in the countryside (not Bejing) where eating dogs is commonplace.
I worked for a Singapore Company and because of the British influence, Chinese from Singapore do not eat dogs.
In Shandong Province, there are restaurants that specialize in dog meat.
I found that in the countryside of China, if it does not bite back, the Chinese will eat it!
As a result, Chinese women guard their little white Pekinese dogs very closely.
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To those who don't see the difference between dogs and chickens:
I don't see the difference between you and monkeys.
Seriously now: I don't eat dogs.
This is not the result of my 'culture', this is the result of my conscious effort to understand and appreciate the value of life of an animal that can think and that can have emotions.
Therefore, if you eat dogs, defending that as part of your 'culture' will not hold. You need to stop, think and make a decision to do away with that behavior. Culture or not.
Now, about the Chinese: I don't know how exactly they treat dogs and cats, but seeing how they treat humans does not make me feel terribly confident about it. They need to learn. It may not be up to us to force it on them or preach it to them, but they need to learn before we accept them as equal partners.
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Chinese cultural ignorance meets American arrogance
The Chinese hosts' ignorance of their guests' customs was quite incredible--imagine visiting Indian Hindus being served beef steaks. This to me was the real story here, but the author chose instead to embarrass himself by demonstrating his cultural arrogance (disingenuously perhaps--in the service of inflammatory journalism). It is not our place to campaign for Chinese people to cease eating dogs and cats. Yes we ought to attempt to raise their consciousness with respect to animal treatment and humane killing. Returning to the Indian Hindu example, I haven't seen many Indians making waves and clamoring for Americans to stop eating cows.
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saving face
dogs are eaten here, too (in my part of china). and they're served in restaurants that westerners also eat in. and they're served at tables with westerners present. i have been at many a meal where the local and delicious food is not to my liking. but there is *always* a plentiful amount of other things on the table to choose from. the author's major faux pas was to make a statement of value judgment against his host. and have it translated. just as he said it.
i, too, think the author was reaching just a little when he said his playmate was strung up and presented to him, freshly gutted. i've had live chickens/ducks presented to me as gifts (in my home), but then taken away to be, um, prepared. it's freshness at its most fresh. and that's an honor.
in restaurants or banquets, though, the only thing i've seen presented alive are the fish.
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Distinguishing between cruelty toward species
There's a big difference between slaughtering livestock, and slaughtering dogs. The latter have been domesticated and brought into intimate personal relationships with human beings. It's like slaughtering a family member in my opinion.
Furthermore, it's disloyal. Domesticated dogs are so dedicated to their owners, they'll take a bullet for you, they'll stay up waiting for you... they'll sit by the front door to guard the home like it's their job. No other species has shown the same dedication to their human masters. I think they deserve a little more loyalty from humans than we'd show to chickens or pigs.
So I'd argue dogs, Canis lupus familiaris, are specially deserving of a more honorable position than "dinner," based not on any real physical difference in the pain and suffering of the species, but on the basis reciprocal loyalty.
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Good points, ixvnyc; however. . .
Free-ranging chickens have intelligence and distinct personalities and are endlessly fascinating to watch. Are we going to have an intelligence cut-off for determining which creatures we deem worthy of respect equal to ourselves? I'll never see the day, but I hope one day we will honor the ocean halibut, the basement spider, and the soil mycellium as much as the dog with the wagging tail.
Before anyone blows a gasket, I'm talking about HONOR and RESPECT. I don't suggest we never put a shovel to earth, but that we need to be aware that we live in partnership with all the life around us, and that all life can feel.
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Consciousness of dogs
The author says "Nonetheless, each one of them is a life, full of consciousness and joy, as anyone who has lived with a dog or cat knows."
I think it's more accurate to say "as anyone who has anthropomorphized a dog or cat believes." Dogs may feel "joy" at dinnertime, but I think it's a stretch (or delusional thinking) to believe dogs or cats are "full of consiousness and joy."
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I'll never see the day, but I hope one day we will honor the ocean halibut, the basement spider, and the soil mycellium as much as the dog with the wagging tail.
We aren't talking about respect we are talking about killing and eating something so the distinction is and should be between what can experience pain and distress and what cannot. I think there IS something disturbing about making an animal feel like you are it's family and then killing and eating it (yes I know animals do that to their own "families") and this seems particularly bad in the case of dogs which are highly social animals, but it should be kept in mind that this manipulation is happening to a degree in ALL cases of domestication. If it weren't the animal would not be domesticated.
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but I think it's a stretch (or delusional thinking) to believe dogs or cats are "full of consiousness and joy."
dogs clearly are full of conscious joy when they interact with people they like. Cats too in many cases. They presumably don't have the self awareness we do but they clearly are conscious and joyful.
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This article = The dumbest thing I have ever read
Dear Mr. Author:
Cultures eat different animals. Some cultures eat cows; others don't. Some eat "bushmeat," i.e. primates; others don't. And some eat dogs; we don't. All other issues aside (e.g., I know that there are environmental problems with bushmeat), it is the epitome of arrogance to criticize another culture's taste in animal flesh.
Moreover, most Americans feed their dogs better than many people eat in this world -- yet they have the gall to criticize those with much less than they over how they fill their own bellies.
So, my dear author, since you are so big on human rights, how about you drop that pet of yours, which eats the meat that others cannot afford, and think of those teeming billions less fortunate than you? Either that, or get off your sanctimonious high horse and dig in at the Chinese banquet table. Heck, if you won't eat Lassie, make room for someone who will.
-Mark Antony