Letters to the Editor
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This article is ridiculous
After all the melodrama it comes down to "I am friends with some dogs, so anybody who eats them is a monster."
If the author were friends with a lamb or two in his day, would he write a similar exposé about the Middle East?
And let's hope he doesn't strike up a relationship with a cow. Most Americans would become his enemies.
Please. If you are against eating animals, I can understand that. But to be against eating animals that you are friends with, and expect everybody else in the world to go along with your personal decisions, is horribly self-centered.
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Newsflash: Unlike Hindu and Muslim, our food choices are not religious!
You cannot put an equal sign between my refusal to eat dogs and some Muslim's or Hindi's refusal to eat pork or beef.
Their choices are religious and cultural. Mine is intellectual, and therefore IS in fact superior, for the same reason my belief in evolution is superior to someones belief in creation.
If you think that following a religious dogma is equal in value as making a conscious, free decision, you are a right-winger, and if I wanted to waste my time talking to right-wingers I would not be on Salon in the first place.
I may not be successful in persuading anyone to not eat dogs, but I sure as hell have the right to try without being called "culturally arrogant".
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@ ixvnyc -- your choices are cultural as well
ixvnyc: "Their choices are religious and cultural. Mine is intellectual, and therefore IS in fact superior, for the same reason my belief in evolution is superior to someones belief in creation."
Are you really saying this? To suggest your choices in food are intellectual and superior is a bit full of it.
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i think the point is that SOME beliefs about food choices have ONLY a religious basis and
others have some basis, or at least are connected in some way, to objective relevant facts about the animals involved such as their ability to experience certain emotions and sensations.
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I don't get the point
I'm not sure what the author's point is with this article. Ostensibly it is animal suffering, but as as so many people have pointed out, if the dog that was killed quickly it was argueably more humane than an a US animal abattoir killing where the animal is extremely stressed before death as it is killed in a production line.
I hate to say I think the author is naive when it comes to animals. I grew up on a small farm and witnessed animals come to a swift death by the hand of my father many times. There are many processes which lifestock and pets go through which seem to distress them much more than slaughter if it's done swiftly. This isn't to say that it's painful to witness any animal die but do we really think that castrating animals is less upsetting to them in terms of process than a bullet? Or what about the mass dipping of sheep, drenching them (dosing with oral medications), docking them (removing tails) or shearing them all which take considerably longer with more handling? It's a grey, grey area the topic of animal suffering.
Unless the dog was slaughtered inhumanely which the author can't confirm, I really don't see the point of comparision between the two countries except for the rather wooly distinction of 'companion animals'. Utimately I think he's actually he saying it's worse because we feel sentimental about them though I think he's attempting to say that it's more upsetting to the animals. Does he really think that dogs and cats have that ability to comphrehend what's going on? Are we really that naive? Have we anthropomorphised them that far? You'd have to say that death is upsetting for any animal. It's upsetting to the author because he likes cats and dogs period. And because he lives in a weathly country were he has the luxury of both distancing himself from his food sources and elevating selected animals to the status of 'companion animals'.
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dogsbody
In central Java, where skewered dog meat is known as "medicinal sate", I have had several rejuvenating meals of it. The men I ate with told me it was a "hot" food, good for the body and libido. A priest there taught me to say "hic est corpus canis mei" before each bite. I think I will cancel my plans to travel to Beijing for the Olympics - not worthy.
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No surprise
A friend of mine just sent me some pictures from Tibet. Nine of them, and I could only look at one. It was of a man being eviserated alive. I've sent them to all the news media I could find, but I suspect these kinds of pictures are common with the Chinese. The Chinese government has so little respect for human life, how could they possibly have respect for anything else?
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Great responses to this article
Shout out to Salon letter writers: Most right-winger types would assume that an article like this would be echoed by predictably angry, emotional responses from "animal rights terrorists."
But most of those I've read so far have opinions that are diverse, nuanced, and thoughtful about the icky subject of eating cats and dogs.
Just though I'd throw that out. Maybe it's the reason I enjoy this site so much.
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Man bites dog
Dogs and humans have a long history of feeding on each other. It's nice that we've reached a stage where we call a truce and be friends rather than supper. I rather doubt that dog-eating will increase in affluent China.
Why eat dog flesh when the meat of endangered species carries so much more cache?
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I wag my tail
I am a journalist (group editor, The Indian Express, New Delhi). Why do I say this right at the beginning? Because I know how hard it is to get a story/an analysis out on treatment of animals in the mainstream media. So Salon carrying Kerasote's account was for me as special as every "animal" story in the mainstream media -- someone else cares, someone else cares to look at the facts, be objective, and because of that convey the essential truth about animal mistreatment: how can we do this?
China, as Kerasote argues, has a mind-numbingly cruel infrastructure for "processing" dogs and cats. There are PETA videos, and those from other organisations, freely available on the net -- I risk dysfunctionality when I see them, can't handle them.
China is glacially indifferent to others' critique of its animal treatment, and when it deigns to say anything, it points to "cultural" differences. Which is why it is so important that Kerasote points out that the issue with dogs and cats is somewhat different. Yes, all cultures kill and eat animals. Yes, tragically, humane salughter is almost a contradiction in terms -- although, it is economically feasible -- everywhere, including in my country, India. But this is true, too: in China and in general in East Asia, something more than industrial organisation of food is involved; you see conduct that may even stir the soul of a meatpacking veteran in other countries. So the mainstream media has to write about this. Not sentimentally, but with logic.
I am fortunate enough to work in a newspaper that has a happy institutional bias towards treating animals well. My editor has 19 dogs, all of them rescued from the street. I have seven dogs who have equally fascinating and heart-warming pedigrees. The Express reacted vigorously when in Bangalore -- yup, the city that's supposed to be taking American jobs away -- civil authorities started a dreadful, illogical and cruel programme to kill all strays. That's physically impossible, and idiotic given that other Indian cities run successful animal birth control pogrammes.
I will take a lot, a hell of a lot, for China to comprehend that something odd is happening at the farms where dogs are skinned alive -- please go to the PETA site and see the video. Articles like Kerasote's are part of that long process. To him and to Salon, I say, If I had a tail, I would be wagging it furiously.
Saubhik Chakrabarti
Group Editor
Indian Express, New Delhi