Cyclists urged to slow in parks

[Crackle]

That's a convenient way of not answering the questions you don't want to answer then.

I buy dog food which is certified under the following scheme http://www.bahnm.org.uk/tech_info.html but you're quite right I don't know the foods source and now I'd like to.

So how about putting that bacteriology into perspective and as the subject is dogs, excluding cats.

 

[magnatom]

Please, will everyone stop rubbing cabs face in it. I think this is the problem...

 

[magnatom]

If you can't stop a pet from defacating all over the place, don't have that pet. I've a right not to have cat s41t in my garden or in the street, I have a right to know that other peoples pets aren't dafacating in the food I'm growing to eat. Such represnets a real risk; why should someone be allowed to force that on their neighbours?

So your all for a cull of hedgehogs, foxes, rats, birds etc. These all defecate in peoples gardens. If you don't advocate this, then what is the difference in someone keeping a pet? Cab you really are sounding a bit crazy here!

 

[Riding in Circles]

By point of law cats are considered to be feral so you have to exempt them, I think people should clean up their dogs poo though.

 

[Jake]

i think the argument has got to the stage where neither of the 2 parties can back down, both have to save face so can't let it go. Send in the UN negotiators. The argument is getting anyone anywhere, nothing is being resolved. Some dog owners are bed, some are good. THE END.

 

[Crackle]

i think the argument has got to the stage where neither of the 2 parties can back down, both have to save face so can't let it go. Send in the UN negotiators. The argument is getting anyone anywhere, nothing is being resolved. Some dog owners are bed, some are good. THE END.

Nah not yet. I want to get to the bottom of Cab's argumant and quantify the issues he describes.

 

[Riding in Circles]

I've a right not to have cat s41t in my garden or in the street,

Actually you don't have any such right, in fact your position with regards animals pooping in your garden is morally reprehensible purely based on you growing your own food as you instantly exclude the rights of other creatures that have occupied the land for a much longer period that man, your position seems to be that you are against the exploitation of animals but if they poop in your cabage patch then they have no right to exist.

NIMBY'ism at its worst wouldn't you say?

 

[Crackle]

Ok. I'll tell you why your posts are irritating me and why I'm accusing you of having issues, whilst at the same time you're accusing me of getting personal and not answering my questions.

We're asked to take it easy to avoid spooking a bunch of dangerous and potentially aggressive carnivores that are kept purely as entertainment and overfed on factory farmed meat by 'animal lovers'?

Emotive, sweeping, generalised. The equivalent of saying all cyclists jump red lights and should be banned to cycle paths.

This makes you a hypocrite.

Ahh, yes, slow down because you might upset Fifi-Tricksypoos, or whatever else the rat on a string is called

More emotive language showing a clear distaste of dogs and insulting anyone who owns one. The equivalent of saying people who commute on bikes are nothing more than two wheeled terrorists.

Again hypocritical.

Its a pet, little more than a toy for most folk living in towns. I'll do my best not to hit any obstruction, but I no more accept the presence of such a dog in my way as appropriate any more than I accept someone doing a jigsaw on the pavement.

demeaning, judgemental and the last statement clearly demonstrates your intolerance of other people and other activities. Sounds like there's one way to live life - Cab's way.

Hypocritical again.

So you introduced the emotive language, tarred all dog owners with the same brush and generally declared yourself anti-dog, which I'm having trouble reconciling with your "I like dogs, I think they're wondeful animals"

Absolutely. Live and let live. I've no truck whatsoever with a dog owner who doesn't feed their pet with factory farmed meat (yes, thats pretty much all of the commercial brands of dog food) and whose dog does not defacate in public, and who does not let their ultimately unpredictable animal off the lead where there are moving vehicles.

You know of such a dog owner?

Vegetarian? Hell no. But I restrict my meat purchases to those where I know how and where the animal was raised and slaughtered, or to wild meat.

Emotivelly expressed but in fact you have actually made a proper debating point and I'm willing to concede it.

95% of dog owners feed their dog commercial petfoods and if they bothered reading the bumf, they'd know they allowing their dogs to eat other peoples dead pets.

But you have chosen not to respond at all to me saying I feed my own dog the best I can get nor have you acknowledged that there are people who care what they give their animals and that this is a growing trend. Instead we're all still lumped into same morally irreprehensible and unjustifiable behaviour group.

Regarding dogfood thats 'sustainable'... Great. I'd love to encounter a dog owner who actually only fed such things to a dog; fact is, if you're an animal lover you can't make any kind of argument whatsoever for feeding any other kind of meat to a pet. If there were any way to find out the truth I'd suggest a sporting wager that none of those complaining in the media about cyclists and dogs are actually that consciencious.

Assumptive and you know we can't know that so you're on safe ground here and can use it to justify your overall anti-dog view without actually going to the bother of proof.

Controlled but off the lead? In a space occupied by moving vehicles, children, and those who simply don't like dogs? You mean, its fine to exclude others by letting dogs run about, because the freedom of dog owners is more important than everyone else? Thats rich.

Fantastic statement. Once again dog owners have less rights as human beings than cyclists. So dog owners are really a menace, more of a menace than children, roller-skaters, kite flyers etc...

Once again unsubstantiated, generalised, blinkered moralizing.

Yes, leaving a smear of untreate fecal matter. How the heck is that okay?

And there is a hundred and fifty years of bacteriology telling us the dangers of untreated feces from dogs, and millenia of examples of dogs causing harm to people when uncontrolled. Delightful animals, for the owners, disease carrying, threatening pests for others.

I like dogs, but I require of any owner of any animal, vehicle or anything else for that matter that they behave in such a way as to minimise risk to others; if you believe that spreading canine fecal matter with a plastic bag and taking most but not all of it away is actually minimising risk for others then you are, simply, wrong.

Another proper debating point, so let's have a debate. Quantify the public health problems posed by dog faeces and let's compare the mental health and excercise benefits gained from owning a dog and the costs to the NHS and society in general of each of those.

Once again, you fail to acknowledge people who are acting responsibly. It doesn't matter according to you, tarred with the same brush again.

We don't have pets in society because it is practical, we have them because we're sentimental. Viewed rationally pet owners should be required to clean and disinfect* sites soiled by their pets, there is no rational argument against that unless you believe that exposing others to needless risk is reasonable.

They serve no purpose other than sentimentality in your book then. Well let's see that doesn't fit into why I have a dog.

1.) I wanted my youngest to get over his fear of dogs
2) I wanted my children to learn about the responsibilities of looking after an animal
3) There are excellent health benefits of owning a dog, including excercise and mental wellbeing

Oh! I left out sentimentality - that's because I'm not but that doesn't fit your world view does it.

*Yes, that means you too cat people.

off-topic - diversionary at best

So we're down to fecal matter. Let's hear the facts please. Quantify it.

 

[jamesgibby]

Actually you don't have any such right, in fact your position with regards animals pooping in your garden is morally reprehensible purely based on you growing your own food as you instantly exclude the rights of other creatures that have occupied the land for a much longer period that man, your position seems to be that you are against the exploitation of animals but if they poop in your cabage patch then they have no right to exist.

NIMBY'ism at its worst wouldn't you say?

If you have most other vermin in your garden you can get the council to come and exterminate them. I vote for classifying cats as vermin if they are in my garden. Especially after coming home to find my wife in tears when she was pregnant because she got cat poo on her hands when gardening. She has not had a vegetable garden since. If a dog traumatised a pregnant woman like that the owner would get abuse, but I guess it is fine for cat owners.

 

[Riding in Circles]

What if it was fox poo or hedgehog poo? People don't own cats, cats own people.

 

[jamesgibby]

What if it was fox poo or hedgehog poo? People don't own cats, cats own people.

I obviously can't say for certain it was cat poo on that occasion however my wife did see a cat pooing in the same place the next day

 

[mangaman]

gbb wrote

Lungs, viscera, blood (by the tanker load), rabbits heads (by the lorry load), fish heads and spine (by the lorry load), even kangaroo or wallaby heads

Thanks gbb - I'm just back from the shops and I've got all the ingredients

Could you post the recipe - I'm getting hungry

PS they were out of Wallaby so I had to get duck billed platypus

 

[Cab]

So your all for a cull of hedgehogs, foxes, rats, birds etc. These all defecate in peoples gardens. If you don't advocate this, then what is the difference in someone keeping a pet? Cab you really are sounding a bit crazy here!

Hedgehogs, no, while they're smelly little things which seem to manage to produce feces as big as they are (go on, watch a hedgehog carpping, its a startling sight, as I discovered last winter while nursing a sick hedgehog till Spring), the specific risk associated with hedgehogs is tiny, partly because they carry few organisms pathogenic in humans and also because they're really rather shy; a hedgehog taking a dump out in the open (rather than in deep undergrowth) is a rare thing. Foxes in cities, perhaps - when they get a bit too familiar with people there is risk associated with that. Foxes in rural areas, no, the risk is negligible mostly for the same reason as hedgehogs. Rats, yes, they spread all manner of diseases and we've become far too blase about that. Birds, no, with the proviso that the risk does increase when you get overpopulations of specific species feeding on human waste, and where this does occur we already do cull and otherwise try to control the population.

I wouldn't blanket wipe-out wildlife or pets in cities, I maintain that the correct approach is to think about our interraction with animals on a species by species basis and, right now, we're far too lenient on allowing domestic pets to defacate all over the place.

 

[Cab]

Actually you don't have any such right,

Legally you're correct. Morally, though, I think that my right not to have to clean up after someone elses pet is entirely clearcut.

in fact your position with regards animals pooping in your garden is morally reprehensible purely based on you growing your own food as you instantly exclude the rights of other creatures that have occupied the land for a much longer period that man,

I don't claim that it is immoral to kill animals or restrict their habitat, nor do I equate animal welfare with human welfare, nor even do I claim that wild animals that get there on their own have got no 'rights'. Domestic cats and dogs aren't defensible on any of those grounds anyway; they're over-fed, outside of normal ecological checks on their populations, they exist purely for peoples entertainment. Fine, by all means have a pet for your entertainment, but your moral right to do so ends when excercising that right infringes on the rights of others.

your position seems to be that you are against the exploitation of animals but if they poop in your cabage patch then they have no right to exist.

I'm not against the 'expoitation' of animals, not at all. I'm against bad animal husbandry (so I'll eat meat with great delight if it was raised to good standards or was from the wild), and quite simply to allow your livestock to soil public areas in such a fashion is bad husbandry.

NIMBY'ism at its worst wouldn't you say?

Not at all, its probably the most practical and decent form of NIMBYism that you can encounter. You may not mind peoples pets messing all over your home and garden, I do.

 

[magnatom]

I wouldn't blanket wipe-out wildlife or pets in cities, I maintain that the correct approach is to think about our interraction with animals on a species by species basis and, right now, we're far too lenient on allowing domestic pets to defacate all over the place.

But cab, what your saying is that cleaning up after a dog isn't good enough. Your suggesting that the small amounts of material left behind are a serious health risk. Sorry mate that's rubbish. Sure the material left behind will contain bacteria etc. Yes some of it is potentially dangerous. That is why when gardening, you should wear gloves and/or wash your hands afterwards. Very simple.

Your suggestion that folk should not be able to keep pets is outragous and ignores the sgnificant benefits that pets provide (I don't have any pets myself). As for only having sentimental value..... guide dogs, dogs for the hard of hearing, dogs that provide real or a sense of security for the vulnerable, dogs that teach children how to look after and respect animals.... etc.

Cab, yer on a hiding to nothing here.