Animal Cruelty or Art Form?

[tom e]

If I can find it again, I'll let you know, because there aren't too many reasons to catch keep them alive.

I believe I've seen that website. If it was different here's another reason it's being done.
There's a market for real old world style dry aged hams here in CA that supposedly is better with the type of pigs that came here from Spain long ago. I can't vouch that it's true or not, but one guy is bringing them back into captivity for those high end meats..

I'll see if I can find the link.

This isn't the link but it's something similar, the pigs in this story are being imported instead...

http://www.latimes.com/features/la-fo-jamon5mar05,1,223057.story

 

[desertanimal]

We are accepting of some elective procedures and not of others, and our attitudes are based much more on what is acceptable in our culture than of the animal's long term health. I will always throw accepted elective procedures back in a person's face if it will dig out hypocrisy. And I don't feel bad about it. And I can't imagine why I would hand wave, because I don't care about cosmetic procedures that do little to nothing to reduce the animal's long term quality of life. I've stated that multiple times.

Ironically, on another web board, I just heard a girl who said she would never, ever dock poor Poopsy's tail just because she liked how it looked tail turn right around and say that she would spay a female dog ASAP because the heats were disgusting. Such bull. Can't tolerate it. If she can do that, I can dock my dog to keep from knocking my coffee off the coffee table with his tail. I don't care if her dog gets potential, incidental health benefits from it; for her to criticize me for the latter and do the former for the same reasons is wrong.

You can't clip the dog's tail but you can cut out the sex organs. There's no good reason to send a dog to catch a dangerous boar, but there's a good reason to send him against a raving lunatic with a gun... and on, and on, and on, ad nauseam.

Now it's just old. No one's made any compelling arguments and I doubt they will.

It's not necessarily wrong for Poopsy's owner to do that, it's logically inconsistent. To say it's wrong is your judgment call. But because you dislike irrational thinking does not make it wrong.

It's also logically incorrect for you to essentially imply that all of these things are equivalent when the way we do things in society is to decide that things are ok or not ok based on perceived cost/benefit ratios--we draw boundaries across sliding scales of cost/benefit ratios. Your approach, above, treats everything in the world as if there are no cost/benefit to ratios to consider at all (the hog-hunting vs police dog example). By your logic, what we get is this:
1) You think circumcision is ok? Well then so are sewing shut the labia of teenage girls and removing the clitoruses of baby girls. Do you really think that?
2) You think putting a dog in a dangerous situation in a police unit is ok? Well then so is sending it off the edge of the Grand Canyon after a frisbee because it would be funny or putting it in a pit to fight because it could make someone some badly needed cash. Do you really think that?
3) You think shooting an intruder in your house is ok? Well so is my punching you in the face because you irritated me. Do you really think that?

I don't believe that you really think all those extreme logical extensions of a scenario that ignore the cost/benefit ratio. Also, if ignoring the cost/benefit ratio as a rational consideration were really approach, deep down in your soul, then you would never have bothered to justify the potential $800 M benefit to hog-hunting, because it's immaterial, as the cost/benefit ratio of the activity is not at issue--like it's not at issue when you equate hog-hunting and crazed-gunman disarming.

Other people are not responding to the issue with unimpeachable logic--that much is true and we are agreed. But I am not asking other people to respond to the issue rationally and with unimpeachable logic because they have not claimed to do so and they have not criticized others so vociferously for failing to. I am asking YOU to respond to the issue with unimpeachable logic because you have criticized others for not doing so, which implies that your own position is firmly grounded in logical consistency. You could take any number of tacks and stick to one steadfastly, but you really haven't, except for the one where you decry others' positions as hypocritical.

I will always throw illogical debate tactics back in a person's face if it will dig out hypocrisy.

 

[desertanimal]

For ear cropping: I also agree boar hunting is foolish excuse to crop ears, why would a pig go for the dogs ears when it surely knows instinctually there are much better targets on a dog? People should just call it what it is. I don't think it's so horrible to say, "I had my pups ears cropped because that's how a _______ should look to me." There isn't much else to it really, and if we make excuses we probably aren't comfortable with the decision to do so from the get go.

Emphasis mine. I agree 100%.

I haven't argued here that people shouldn't crop their dogs' ears or take them boar hunting or do whatever has been discussed in this thread. I've argued the way in which those things have been argued to be necessary.

 

[desertanimal]

Do they make bacon from those pigs? Because if there's bacon out there that's better than the bacon I eat from the store, I would looooove to try it.

 

[tom e]

Steph, I think what they were after was something like an iberian ham or proscuitto. I haven't tried any of it myself (of the CA re-creation anyway) but I would love to. I see pigs and only want to eat them. :grin01:

Now that I think of it though, I don't think Emily and I are talking about the same site. The farmers I saw were trapping them with large cages.

 

[desertanimal]

I see pigs and only want to eat them. :grin01:

Meeeeeee too. God I love bacon.

 

[snakemom1961]

My dog that recently passed last year had dewclaws on both hind legs, one was attached and one wasn't. I remember when he was younger and the vet recommended that I have them removed, I asked why and he said that some day he "might get them caught on something and they could be torn off". I thought well some day I might get my thumb smashed in a car door, but that doesn't sound like a very good reason to cut it off...Wouldn't you know it that dog lived 14 years and pretty much ran free in every type of environment we have here in the US, high plains desert in Colorado, forested woodlands in Ohio, scrub brush in Texas, etc... and never a problem. I'm sure it happens, but it didn't with my dog. That being said, I have all my dogs/cats 'fixed' mainly to prevent copulation but secondly for health reasons.

You were lucky with you dog not having it's dew claws removed. My sister felt the same way with her dog. He didn't have his dews removed and she chose not to have them removed when she got him. With in a year he tore one of his dews while running through the woods and the surgery was much more extensive and expensive then if she had chosen to have them removed when she got him. Because of her experience, I bought an 8 week old airedale that didn't have her dews removed right away and chose to have her go through surgery to have them removed and never regretted it.

 

[danielle]

Ironically, on another web board, I just heard a girl who said she would never, ever dock poor Poopsy's tail just because she liked how it looked tail turn right around and say that she would spay a female dog ASAP because the heats were disgusting. Such bull. Can't tolerate it. If she can do that, I can dock my dog to keep from knocking my coffee off the coffee table with his tail. I don't care if her dog gets potential, incidental health benefits from it; for her to criticize me for the latter and do the former for the same reasons is wrong.

You can't clip the dog's tail but you can cut out the sex organs. There's no good reason to send a dog to catch a dangerous boar, but there's a good reason to send him against a raving lunatic with a gun... and on, and on, and on, ad nauseam.

Now it's just old. No one's made any compelling arguments and I doubt they will.

Emily I happen to like you, but this is so ridiculous and I know your intellient enough to now why. There are societal benefits and health benefits to spaying and neutering while there are none for docking and cropping. Saying you crop ears to prevent shredding from a wild boar literally makes me,lol. An ear injury while superficial and mostly aesthetic is not usually going to be life threatening if taken care of. Tusks going through the dog however is. A dogs tail knocking over your coffee is annoying, but does not harm you, the dog, or society. However, a hormonal dog getting loose to do the deed is a dog not in his right mind. He may just run in front of car, bite someone, or spread his/her weak genes to the closest dog in the neighborhood creating more unwanted muts.

I agree if the owner wants to dock or crop their dog its their choice and not animal cruelty in the least. However, I do not feel the procedure of docking and cropping is even close to being related to spaying or neutering a dog. You bring up osteosarcoma as a reason not to spay/neuter and I have to think you have researched this. Compared to prostate, uterine, or cervical cancer osteosarcoma is EXTREMELY rare in dogs and most dogs are fixed leading me to rationally assume spaying/neutering is not the cause of this cancers development in whole, or else this would be a more common cancer in dog populations.

I have no problem with you cropping ears and not spaying or neutering your dogs, but your logic behind these decisions is bunk. There are few absolutes in life so if you feel your way is beneficial to your dogs thats exactly what you should do, but getting on someones case for having a problem with cropping and then spaying her dog is irrational. Docking/cropping= aesthetic pleasure and norm conformity for specific breeds and spay/neutering= population control, genetic integrity, and an easier animal to live with

 

[snakemom1961]

Ironically, on another web board, I just heard a girl who said she would never, ever dock poor Poopsy's tail just because she liked how it looked tail turn right around and say that she would spay a female dog ASAP because the heats were disgusting. Such bull. Can't tolerate it. If she can do that, I can dock my dog to keep from knocking my coffee off the coffee table with his tail. I don't care if her dog gets potential, incidental health benefits from it; for her to criticize me for the latter and do the former for the same reasons is wrong.

You can't clip the dog's tail but you can cut out the sex organs. There's no good reason to send a dog to catch a dangerous boar, but there's a good reason to send him against a raving lunatic with a gun... and on, and on, and on, ad nauseam.

Now it's just old. No one's made any compelling arguments and I doubt they will.

Emily I happen to like you, but this is so ridiculous and I know your intellient enough to now why. There are societal benefits and health benefits to spaying and neutering while there are none for docking and cropping. Saying you crop ears to prevent shredding from a wild boar literally makes me,lol. An ear injury while superficial and mostly aesthetic is not usually going to be life threatening if taken care of. Tusks going through the dog however is. A dogs tail knocking over your coffee is annoying, but does not harm you, the dog, or society. However, a hormonal dog getting loose to do the deed is a dog not in his right mind. He may just run in front of car, bite someone, or spread his/her weak genes to the closest dog in the neighborhood creating more unwanted muts.

I agree if the owner wants to dock or crop their dog its their choice and not animal cruelty in the least. However, I do not feel the procedure of docking and cropping is even close to being related to spaying or neutering a dog. You bring up osteosarcoma as a reason not to spay/neuter and I have to think you have researched this. Compared to prostate, uterine, or cervical cancer osteosarcoma is EXTREMELY rare in dogs and most dogs are fixed leading me to rationally assume spaying/neutering is not the cause of this cancers development in whole, or else this would be a more common cancer in dog populations.

I have no problem with you cropping ears and not spaying or neutering your dogs, but your logic behind these decisions is bunk. There are few absolutes in life so if you feel your way is beneficial to your dogs thats exactly what you should do, but getting on someones case for having a problem with cropping and then spaying her dog is irrational. Docking/cropping= aesthetic pleasure and norm conformity for specific breeds and spay/neutering= population control, genetic integrity, and an easier animal to live with

Your are awesome!! You so got the Gist of what was being said. It is no ones right to regulate anothers right to do whatever they want as far as they want cosmetically. But when they decide cosmetically they want to re arraign their pets appearance to suit them that I have a problem with.

 

[ceduke]

You were lucky with you dog not having it's dew claws removed. My sister felt the same way with her dog. He didn't have his dews removed and she chose not to have them removed when she got him. With in a year he tore one of his dews while running through the woods and the surgery was much more extensive and expensive then if she had chosen to have them removed when she got him. Because of her experience, I bought an 8 week old airedale that didn't have her dews removed right away and chose to have her go through surgery to have them removed and never regretted it.

Agreed...my mother's dog tore a dewclaw and it was a terrible thing. She lost a lot of blood and recovery was LONG and painful. I wish we had had them removed when she was spayed.

 

[diamondlil]

I have booked to have Rosie's dew clawsremoved when she is spayed. Because she is such a crazy, active little dog I will have them removed to reduce the risk of her tearing them out. I'm spaying her because I won't breed her and unspayed lurchers are a prime 'stealable' dog for backyard breeders.

 

[snakemom1961]

Janine, I feel you are making a great choice in both areas. Having her spayed and having her dew claws removed. Granted dew claw removal is much easier when the pups are first born, it's much less traumatic then if they get torn later in live.

 

[Tracee]

Getting back to the original tattooed cat, you know what I don't understand? Why not just Photoshop it? Trying to get the details right so the Photoshopped image looked so real people fell for it would be way cool & harmless to the cat, who would have to pose for a few pictures!

When I showed the pic to my husband he actually commented that it looked like a good Photoshop, as the cat's skin is near-white but there is no redness. And we all know how red new tattoos are...

???