To see nothing wrong with eating dogs in principle

[ReallyTired]

I have to admit that I have never eaten dog and I don't fancy the idea. However provided the dogs have a reasonable and are humanely killed, I don't think its any worse to eat a dog than to eat a cow or a sheep or pig.

I feel that rescuing animals which suffer cruety in Thailand like this woman has done

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-23785231

is a poor use of money. She has done nothing to improved the lot of dogs in Thailand.

In the UK there are lots of healthy dogs which get put down every year because no one wants them. Why could she not have given a Scottish dog a home? Sadly there is plenty of animal cruelty in all parts of the British Isles. The costs of paying for animal from Thaliand to fly to the UK and be quantinened would have saved numerous dogs in Scotland.

Rather than trying to stop dogs being eaten surely it would be better to set up farms and humanely kill dogs that are destined for the table just like sheep in the UK. (Ie. with similar hygiene standards to the UK.) Saving one dog by bringing it to England is not going to improve the dog meat trade in Thailand.

[OrmirianResurgam]

garlic - my objection wasn't so much about the farming being cruel but that is isn't neccessary. We don't eat dogs in this country so unless the OP was suggesting not only that it is OK but that actually it should be encouraged, I don't quite see the need for farms.

[domesticvoyager]

Pigs are omnivores only by default. They can't hunt and I don't think they would naturally seek out meat in any way.

Eating an animal is eating something that has eaten an animal that has possibly eaten an animal - you are further away from the bottom of the food chain which is more risky/expensive/less efficient.

[CocacolaMum]

I agree with the OP on this. I like rabbit, I would probably like cat or dog too.

I also think we should be utilising the masses of perfectly edible protein rich insects though so probably not the best person to ask.

[domesticvoyager]

Hypervitaminosis A would be one likely outcome

[elQuintoConyo]

principle is that like a bap? or a town in southern France?

[expatinscotland]

I agree. Meat is meat. Some eat hamsters and guinea pigs.

[garlicbaguette]

I see, Orm :) I thought she meant in Thailand. Got to say I know very little about the matter of Thai dog-meat production.

Domesticvoyager, people have been eating the meat of carnivores for a very long time! Your statement is very odd. The only way you'd get hypervitaminosis A from food is by eating phenomenal amounts of liver.

[OutragedFromLeeds]

YANBU in principle.

Is it unreasonable to eat humans? In principle, we're animals too.

[MrsBethel]

I'm with domesticvoyager on this one. It's most hygenic to eat herbivores to keep the food chain nice and simple.

On principle, I don't see a dog as any different to a cow or pig. We can't base our moral decisions on whether some people have them as pets or not.

I'm not a vegetarian, but really, I know deep down that eating meat is probably wrong. And it wouldn't surprise me if in 100 years people look back on us as pretty barbarous (in the same way we look back at times when racism was accepted and wonder "just what were they thinking?").

[garlicbaguette]

Dunno! It feels like a slippery road towards farming humans for food Although consuming the flesh of one’s own species offers a useful source of nutrients, it is also likely to contribute to the spread of pathogens, and, therefore disease, according to the nature site I consulted.

I would eat an already-dead person in an emergency, no problem. Not so sure about actually killing someone to survive ... this probably means I'm the one who'd be eaten!

[DameDeepRedBetty]

The hypervitaminosis is known in exceptional cases, one that springs to mind is during an Arctic or Antarctic expedition back in the Scott and Shackleton period, a member fell ill and his friends fed him the softest, most nutritious bits of the sled dogs that they were killing off for the meat while stuck in the ice for winter.

[DameDeepRedBetty]

Vitamin A concentrates in liver btw.

[domesticvoyager]

garlicbaguette what carnivores have we been eating? As a main part of our diet, obviously, not when we're marooned in a safari park or something.

I'm not speaking as any sort of authority. I just always thought it was obvious we didn't eat carnivores. I'm happy to be proven wrong.

[domesticvoyager]

Carnivores are less docile as well. THey would have to be fed many times their own weight in other animals before slaughter. And those animals would have to be raised and fed too, just as fodder. It would make the food chain uncontrollable, wouldn't it?

[garlicbaguette]

Domesticvoyager. In Britain, the omnivores we normally eat are:
Pig
Poultry, and other birds
Cod, and other fish
Prawns, and other molluscs.

We also eat some obligate carnivore birds and (I think) fish.

Britain's a bit short on obligate carnivores unless you count cats, which we don't normally eat. Carnivorous meat is more readily available elsewhere. In other countries I've had alligator, piranha and shark.

[garlicbaguette]

And squid/octopus!

[ZingWantsCake]

same with cats. I hate cats and the fact that they come in and out of our garden, shitting where they please.

I'd rather eat them. that would learn them.

maybe it isn't ketchup after all. it is catsoup

[garlicbaguette]

Eeek, Zing, they do call it catsup in the US, don't they?
D'you reckon ... ???!

[domesticvoyager]

Hm, good point, I hadn't thought about fish, even though I've eaten piranha. But I hunted it myself - I wouldn't want to eat Sainsbury's piranhas that had been feed god knows what in a tank somewhere. The shorter the food chain, the better.

We are even advised not to eat any significant quantity of scavenger fish (that's tuna, I think) because of the when-animals-eat-animals effect of increasing mercury levels etc. Or is that something different?

Pigs can eat meat, but the pigs we eat haven't eaten meat. I don't think farmers are allowed to give them meat either.

[SanityClause]

I saw dog carcasses hanging in a market in China, when I was there. I also spoke to people who confirmed that dog is eaten there. It's a delicacy, though, and supposed to have special health giving properties, particularly the black ones, apparently. Black goats are also supposed to have healthier meat than other colours, as well.

[ZingWantsCake]

garlic
I always wondered.
fx

I do really hate cats

[Justforlaughs]

I hate cats as well! Lets start a campaign to eat them!

[ReallyTired]

I imagine it would be quite easy to farm dogs for slaughter. You would feed them cheap cuts of beef, lamb or pork. The hardest part would be that staff who would run a dog farm would need to keep an emotional distance from the dogs. Thought would need to be given on how best to allow the dogs to get exercise and have a reasonable doggy life before slaughter.

I am suggesting setting up a dog farm in Thailand and lobbying the Thai government to make it law that only farmed dog meat can be sold. Its terrible to think that people's beloved pets are stolen for the meat market.

[ElenorRigby]

How about useless humans?