Truly, I think I've had enough

[Cyclopathic]

It could be argued that keeping dogs or any other creatures as pets is wrong in the first place....

I think the case for dogs and cats is different to pretty much any other animal when it comes to being pets. I tend towards the opinion that the fate and development of both dogs and cats has been entwined with our own for thousands of years now.

At some point dogs became very useful to us and in return we provided things for them. Cats too became useful, presumably when we started having to store grain and other foods. Cats could keep down the mice etc.. And so on and so forth. In these ways our relationship with cats and dogs is a lot more symbiotic than with other animals that we simply exploit.

 

[vernon]

(...) And so on and so forth. In these ways our relationship with cats and dogs is a lot more symbiotic than with other animals that we simply exploit.

It's only symbiotic when both sides benefit. I don't regard companionship as a benefit. It's a one sided exploitation....

Cats have us do their bidding.

We make pet dogs do our bidding.

 

[Cyclopathic]

It's only symbiotic when both sides benefit. I don't regard companionship as a benefit. It's a one sided exploitation....

Cats have us do their bidding.

We make pet dogs do our bidding.

I think a lot of people who own dogs do not treat them correctly even if they are not noticably cruel or neglectful. A lot of people will leave a dog alone while they are at work which must be hugely stressful for what is a pack animal. However I think that dogs enjoy being a part of a human pack and if treated properly can have really good, happy lives.

If done right I don't think keeping cats and dogs is cruel but I cannot think of another animal that this would be true for. I used to live next door to a man who kept birds in an avery and it was heartbreaking. They had very little room and certainly could not fly. Rabbits in hutches seem to have a pretty dismal time of things and as for exotic animals I can't see any excsue for taking something thousands of miles from its natural habitat to keep it in misery. I don't care how well people say they take care of them it can't make up for such treatment.

Dogs have been bred to fulfil certain roles and that has caused a lot of problems. I despair of people who look only to get a pedigree dog when there are so many other dogs that need looking after. It just creates a demand for these pedigrees and is some cases encourages extremely bad breeding practice amoungst those willing to make quick money from their sale.

The whole pet issue is fraught but I still think essentially that dogs and cats can have fulfilled lives with us monkeys.

 

[MarkF]

My mother just got a dog from the RSPCA, her old Saluki popped it's paws a couple of years back and she misses the company. She saw and wanted a dog on the RSPCA website, "Scrappy" a collie-cross 8 years old. It's owners had died and it had been taken in with it's companion "Sally". Sally was quickly snapped up but Scrappy had languished in a pen for 5 months. My mother saw the pic & description, it was the right age and size so she called in, unfortunately he had just been reserved and left for his new home days later.

A week later he was back in his pen, the new owners returned him saying that they couldn't "manage him, he needed walking!!!

Scrappy has settled in at my mother's and enjoying 3 walks a day, as is my mother, Winners all round.

 

[slowmotion]

For some*, dogs are a source of protein. Why should they be afforded a different sentiment to that given to cows, goats and sheep.

*Switzerland for instance - I bet that's a surprise

Crikey! I just found this in Wiki...

Switzerland[edit]
Swiss recipes for dog meat include gedörrtes Hundefleisch served as paper-thin slices, as well as smoked dog ham, Hundeschinken, which is prepared by salting and drying raw dog meat.[135]
According to the 21 November 1996 edition of the Rheintaler Bote, a Swiss newspaper covering the Rhine Valley area, the rural Swiss cantons of Appenzell and St. Gallen are known to have had a tradition of eating dogs, curing dog meat into jerky and sausages, as well as using the lard for medicinal purposes. Dog sausage and smoked dog jerky remains a staple in the Swiss cantons of St. Gallen and Appenzell, where one farmer was quoted in a regional weekly newspaper as saying that "meat from dogs is the healthiest of all. It has shorter fibres than cow meat, has no hormones like veal, no antibiotics like pork."[136]
A few years earlier, a news report on RTL Television on the two cantons set off a wave of protests from European animal welfare activists and other concerned citizens. A 7,000-name petition was filed to the commissions of the cantons, who rejected it, saying it was not the state's right to monitor the eating habits of its citizens.
The production of food from dog meat for commercial purposes, however, is illegal in Switzerland.[137]

 

[MarkF]

These extreme people obviously use animals as substitutes for human friends or children. It isn't normal to treat an animal like some people do.

My mother is an elderly widow and like many in their late 70's & '80's, finds it hard to keep up an active social life with her friends being so inconsiderate...........dying (as they do). Nights can be lonely. So yes, I suppose the dog is a substitute, it's company at night that she otherwise would not have. I have been willing her to get a dog again, she's far more active with one and in just two weeks the new arrival has had such a positive effect on her. My mother is not extreme.

 

[Roadrider48]

My mother is an elderly widow and like many in their late 70's & '80's, finds it hard to keep up an active social life with her friends being so inconsiderate...........dying (as they do). Nights can be lonely. So yes, I suppose the dog is a substitute, it's company at night that she otherwise would not have. I have been willing her to get a dog again, she's far more active with one and in just two weeks the new arrival has had such a positive effect on her. My mother is not extreme.

In that particular circumstance I completely agree. And I meant no offence to your mother.

 

[MarkF]

In that particular circumstance I completely agree. And I meant no offence to your mother.

No problem. I agree with some of what you say, it's bizarre how some treat their pets. But for old single people, they are a good substitute, healthy too, my mum has to walk it 3 times day, whether she wants to or not.

 

[nickyboy]

[QUOTE 2873777, member: 9609"]Where did I say that ?[/quote]

"in fact in the end I would only turn out if there was an animal involved." ie if there was no animal involved you would not help a human

@User is spot on. There is unimaginable suffering by wild animals every day, millions of them die every year in the UK and they are dying from starvation all around us at this time of year. Instead of focusing on an odd dog here or there, or a swan....why not focus on the millions that are dying around us all the time? Suffering is suffering at the end of the day, doesn't matter what is suffering

 

[Gravity Aided]

If we put much of the money we put into weaponry into alleviating the suffering of our fellow human beings, maybe some of the root causes of conflict and need could be resolved. Animals are not the victims of their own shortsightedness, they are often the victims of people, and the way humans behave.

Harrier,left at Animal Shelter as soon as he was weaned. Taken to a home 6 months after left at a shelter, then returned after a weekend. Adopted by us after more than a year in a shelter.




Abandoned on a road with her siblings, at the edge of a forest. I adopted her, I think a fellow at work adopted a sibling, Elizabethan Beagle.

 

[buggi]

my four ferrets were rescued. One of them was almost starved, he was with 5 others when the RSPCA rescued him, of which 3 were already dead. They didn't think he was gonna make it. They were in a hutch outside their owners kitchen. They simply couldn't be bothered to go out and feed them, and they were wallowing in their own muck. I'm not sure how my others got rescued but they are all RSPCA jobs.

 

[Lanzecki]

I've just found out the dog was 2-3 years old.

 

[Fnaar]

[QUOTE 2874801, member: 1314"]she'd driven the cat 3 miles away, trapped its paw in it collar, and left it.[/quote]
Leaving aside the dumping of the cat, why on earth would she trap its paw like that?

 

[Gravity Aided]

I've just found out the dog was 2-3 years old.

How is it doing, then?

 

[Lanzecki]

How is it doing, then?

From Limerick animal welfare's FB page :

"This is Orla who was found abandoned in Aherlow last Sunday. Orla is very submissive, she finds it difficult to trust humans but once shown some love and kind words she waggs her tail. She has a lovely kennel mate called Lady a gently old gsd. In time Orla will know that not all humans are cruel. Feel better soon Orla xx"