Dog lovers aren’t animal lovers

@tumblingdowntherabbithole I don't know if you are not reading my posts or if you're not understanding them but it's one of the two.

FWIW, it's attitudes like this that give vegans a bad reputation. I'm sure you don't care, but I thought I'd put it out there.

@redboxer321 well of course, you're free to say whatever you like to people, but don't be surprised if you then find yourself on the receiving end of someone's upset or anger.

You have no idea if there's something majorly wrong with someone's dog based on a tiny snapshot of a walk. If someone said my dog was suffering because they saw him limping with grass on his paw, I'd probably burst into tears, quite honestly.

@EdithStourton I'd love the registry system with the health test information without a show ring rewarding only looks.

Interestingly, one of the comments my boy got at crufts this year was that his nose is the wrong shade 😂

I tried not to laugh. All these years of trying to encourage betterment of the breed, and my boy gets marked down for a brown spot on his nose. Yet the flat faced frenchies that can't breath are encouraged. Bonkers.

But I'll persevere in the hopes they don't ruin my breed as they have done so many others.

Next year, I'll paint his nose black ahead of time.

I'll say this again: I do not give advice. Neither do I butt in.
But owners are sometimes the last people to recognise that their dog is uncomfortable or in pain because they see them everyday and so the decline is gradual and less noticeable. Also people understandably don't want to face up to the fact that one day they will lose them. It's all perfectly understandable but it doesn't make it right.

But I wish someone would do something. I am just back from a walk and saw a man with two dogs. The way they move suggests they are in discomfort/pain. I see him often. He has progressed from throwing the ball over and over and over with a ball thrower to riding a bike with them chasing him. The one dogs gets confused and I think its eyesight might be going.
I hope someone is "bonkers" enough/willing to take the risk of offending him to says something to him because I am sorry to say that I have not found a way yet.

If more people were willing to stand up and say something when they saw something bad happening to people or other animals, the world might be in less of a mess than it is.

Edited to say, the first few words of your post says it all: "I just like to think...." We'd all like to think that there's nothing to worry about but I'm sorry to say, there often is.

I understand. In that case, you’re wrong.

Like I said, very idealistic

The change I have seen over the three decades I have been vegan have shown me that change is happening.
They said the same about women getting the vote. About slavery. About a LOT of things that people were adamant would never change. How about that!

I don't know any vegan who hates animals. I certainly don't hate animals. I do, however, hate hypocrisy, and I don't think it is right to save one dog at great cost to the many animals who will be slaughtered to feed it. In a simple numbers game, it is surely not vegan to save one dog when it means suffering and death for so many other animals.
ALL the vegans I know, and I know A LOT, are kind and caring. Absolutely all of them.
Vegetarians on the other hand ...

But it also may as well not be anyone, and the dog fed to the lion instead of breeding a sheep to be fed to the lion.

https://wildearth.com/blogs/the-wild-times/bramble-the-vegan-border-collie?srsltid=AfmBOoqG0aUn8rH-d-yU_gFXMhZANx-THt-SDDt9b8p1PYf-bWJTmGDq

Dogs thrive on a plant-based diet.

To drag this thread away from the vegans...

I have mixed feelings about the Kennel Club (and Crufts).

When you judge a dog in the show ring, aside from it being temperamentally stable enough to cope being in the ring, not bite the judge etc, you're not seeing anything about its mind. You're not seeing its working ability. You're not seeing how drivey it is, how good it is at working the wind, or working stock, whether it really would bring down a wolf, whether it's hardy enough to handle the weather that would be thrown at it, whether its coat would shrug off the rain, whether its conformation is robust enough to do a day's work. Nothing about trainable it is.

I don't know when there was last a dual champion cocker or Labrador: springer, cocker and labs have split into very different show and working types. I own a hunt-point-retrieve breed, and I know several dogs who both work and do well in shows, but even in those breeds a split is developing - some lines are losing their working ability, because if you don't breed for the working traits you will slowly lose them, and if you select against them (because a less driven dog is much easier to keep and handle) you will lose them even faster.

So, to that extent, the KC and Crufts destroy working breeds. And they also encourage - via what is rewarded in the show ring - the deformity of some breeds: the too-long dachshunds prone to back issues, the saggy-eyed bloodhounds that wouldn't last 5 minutes in the field, the brachy dogs that can barely breathe.

On the other hand, the KC maintains a registry, so you can know, if you're looking to breed a litter, that this stud dog is too closely related for comfort and that stud dog is far enough away. You can look at generations of health test results. All of that is valuable.

I'd love the registry system with the health test information without a show ring rewarding only looks.

I think you have a very idealistic view of humanity and what they'll do. You will never turn this entire planet vegan.

It's fascinating - I was veggie for a while as a teenager (I couldn't maintain it due to my autism and sensory issues around food) but I never realised people got so angry about it, and battered people for loving cats and dogs, or hamsters. It's crazy to me.

Why can't people just live and let live? Why do people need to belittle others and try and make them feel shit, or cruel, or stupid? It's not going to change anything.

Animal agriculture is by FAR the worst pollutant to our planet. With sustainable practices to import minimal foods (e,g, avocados), ideally by ship, but with the vast majority being home grown, I think that would satisfy more people, to give us a bit ore variety. I think with modern farming methods (hydroponics, vertical farming hubs, polytunnels, aeroponics etc) we can probably grow all that we need. Add some import to get some treat items (oranges from Seville), and we can be happy and healthy. It's absolutely doable, we just need the will to do it.

Ooh, yes please.

My point is that a vegan diet that involves importing food for people is probably less environmentally friendly than a diet where people eat locally reared meat - so I don't believe it's something we really need to be aiming for.

I'm a lifelong veggie, I know plenty of vegans and a lot of them have pets. I am totally baffled by this new militant veganism that involves hating animals... Or at least having rules along the lines of x animal = bad, Y animal = good.
And why does veganism now equate to so much anger and hate? Vegans I knew growing up were kind and caring. When did this change?

I take your point but someone is feeding a dog in a shelter so it may as well be me. I have thought about a vegan diet for her but I'm not sure it's right. And vegan food, the way it is produced on mass, is not cruelty free in any case.
If there were far fewer cats and dogs we could feed them from offcuts from the meat for humans industry. There must be a huge amount of carcass that is not used.

As I said, I do take your point and think it's a good one.

As mentioned previously, vegan diets use less land. We certainly don’t have enough land in the UK to feed everyone a meat diet without importing so I don’t understand what your point is.

We can indeed all be vegan in this country, if we wanted to.

We could. Personally, though, I love a nice blue steak.

Out of interest, why are you okay with importing and not breeding animals? Is it down to animal cruelty? Do the air miles and pollution not bother you?

Yes, absolutely. With better management, and correct systems, eg hydroponics, we can achieve this. Especially when we don't have to feed cats and dogs as well. But I am not against importing, too, within reason.

Mumsnet, please give us the vom react emoji.

You like your pet because of what your pet gives you, that’s all. It’s totally selfish.

Correct. I have no issue with being selfish in the slightest, FWIW.