Letters to the Editor
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Perhaps we should get our own house in order
before self-righteously attacking the "exotic" practices of another culture.
Millions of cows, pigs and other animals are brutally killed in factory settings in the United States with little regard to their comfort or well-being. Without slighting other slaughtered animals, pigs are reputed to make good and affectionate pets, and are regularly cited to have greater intelligence than dogs.
Why is it more appropriate to slaughter the animals raised in a factory setting than the dog who started life as a pet? Does the fact that the factory bred and slaughtered animals lived more of their lives in misery justify killing them? This hardly makes sense.
Of course, in this country untold numbers dogs and cats (many of whom were once pets) are routinely rounded up for "euthanasia." Killing them with kindness, I suppose.
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Salon's Olympic Cultural Intolerance
Give me a break! Sure the author points out that consuming dogs and cats is simply a cultural difference that we should be tolerant of but then proceeds to talk about the cruelty of the practice anyway. He points to an example documented cruelty in the treatment of dogs and cats and I don't doubt that such practices may be wide-spread but how does this compare to our own treatment of meat animals that are forced to wallow in their own shit before being slaughtered and sometimes, as we have recently learned, subjected to treatment just as cruel as the documented evidence he cites.
If cruelty to food dogs and cats in China is widespread then the international community should pressure China to institute regulations on the treatment of dogs and cats but pushing for an outright ban is culturally insensitive. But maybe before we even go there, we ought to clean our own house first!
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Thank you Ted Kerasote!
Thank you Ted Kerasote - your article, while incredibly difficult to read is an important reminder of China's failings regarding human and animal rights. For the life of me I can't understand why we've allowed - and I do mean allowed - China to host the Olympics - personally I won't be watching.
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Origins of our relationships with these animals
To those saying there's no difference between cats and dogs and chickens and cows, you're wrong. As a species we cultivated cows, sheep and chickens (and others) as food stock. We changed them, domesticated them and used them for food and sometimes clothing. Cats and dogs were domesticated for different reasons. We domesticated and changed them as assistants, companions and partners.
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No debate
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. "
Mahatma Gandhi
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Yeah, I suppose we shouldn't host any Olympics anymore either.
At least not until we stop using forklifts on cows, raise and train dogs to fight each other to the death, produce videos of women in high heels stepping on and crushing kittens, and run chicken and pig factories.
The China a sick and depraved nation, but USA is number one and it will take China a long time to catch up.
Feeling guilty? OH LOOK WHAT JAPAN IS DOING TO WHALES!!!
I am shocked!
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They just don't get it, do they Ted?
I like most dogs far better than I like most people. Many of the posts re this article reenforce that bias. As for Ted, please note that he has a direct and personal relationship with the animals he chooses to eat that is just as personal as the relationship he has with dogs. That is possible. If you don't know how then you can find out if you want to.
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Boycott China
It seems to me that the almost immediate knee-jerk reaction is to 1)ask what's the difference between a domesticated cat or dog and a lamb or a calf or a pig, and 2) the usual heralding of the human and its suffering as opposed to animals. As a vegan, I continuously deal with people taking this approach of "you care more about animals than people". It's such a flawed argument. The human being's capacity for love is limitless. I love people - most people - and animals. I don't believe either need to be tortured. I don't believe either should be wrongfully incarcerated and killed. I care a great deal for the plight of citizens in China that are being swept up, tortured, and imprisoned. I cannot fathom why we trade openly with a ruthless totalitarian government that crushes demonstrations with sweeps of brutality, while a little country off our coast is economically sanctioned.
If you have not watched the Chinese fur video (available at PETA), I am telling you from someone who has seen every conceivable animal rights video, it is the most upsetting, cry out loud in shock, display of human cruelty that I have ever seen. But let's get one thing straight, we as Americans consumers, are responsible for it, as well as the brutal torture of billions of animals in our own country. An animal is a thinking, feeling creature with as much capacity for fear and pain as we human beings. Our treatment of them, from the abuse of elephants in Thailand and for Ringling, to the barren, dark, pungent holding cells of pigs and calves and other sentinel beings all across this country to the fur farms in Russia and Missouri - we are responsible for the CARE of animals, not their demise. I decided, after the Tibetan fiasco, that I can no longer pretend that China is some innocuous entity supplying cheap crap for everyone via Walmart and other purveyors of substandard goods. I will not be a party to the rampant cruelty that is inherent in this sort of dictatorship - a far crueler rule than Saddam. I will not buy Chinese anything, as hard as that might be and I am boycotting the Olympics. I have no interest in watching a charade, while athletes cough and splutter through a pollution thick environment, all the while knowing that anyone who has spoken out is now facing violence beyond our comprehension and that dogs and cats are being skinned while fully cognizant and thrown upon a pile of disposable flesh, fully aware and alive.
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anthropomorphized a dog or cat
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."
I feel sorry for this poster who obviously never had a close relationship with a dog. There are tons of documented stories about dogs suffering from depression, seperation anxiety, and intense joy (not to mention other feelings). The more we study domesticated dogs, the more we see the intricate feelings that shape their consciousness. I am always amazed when people discredit another species capacity to feel. It is what drives our complicity in animal cruelty. As a species, we have a long, long way to go.