Aibu to think I should be ok to exercise my well behaved dog wherever I like in fields

[Scrowy]

I'm not BU because my dog is a farm dog and the fields are my fields.

Sadly however the local dog owners seem to think that our fields (some with footpaths, some without) are fair game and that they have an equal right to use them as they see fit.

This week we have politely asked 6 people with loose dogs to remove themselves from the pasture we have just separated some lambs into. There is no footpath in that field but it has a nice view.

During lambing time this year we lost 4 lambs and 1 sheep to sheep worrying. About 5 years ago one dog killed 24 lambs in one go. Every week we are aware of minor incidents of sheep worrying, fortunatly most don't result in death but do always result in stress on the animals.

Also this week we have sent some older sheep to slaughter. Out of 30 of them 24 of them were condemned due to Echinococcosis, a disease passed on to sheep from dog poo and only identifiable at slaughter.

Neosporosis is another disease passed on from dog poo do cattle. It causes the cattle to abort their calves.

Letting your dogs poo on farmland is directly putting farms out of business.

Letting your dogs 'play' with sheep causes death, even if your dog doesn't actually maul something at the time.

You wouldn't walk into a shop, knock down a display and break stuff without expecting to have to pay for damages. Why do people think that the countryside is fair game?

I'm all for live and let live, I want people to enjoy the countryside and support it. I also want people to realise that it's not just there for their amusement, that some people are trying to make (an increasingly small and desperate) living from it.

You haven't explained how current slaughter practices are worse than "natural" deaths by predation, accidents, disease or old age.
Or how life in fields or with as much food as they like, protection from predation, vaccinations and treatment is much worse than natural life, struggling to find food, escaping predators, parasite infestion is.

I can't understand why I have to explain something so morally wrong. But so that you can stop trolling my every response with such an inanity, here goes, finally please.

Animals in the wild have a fighting chance to survive. Breeding them and conditioning them to 'trust' us such that we can cart them in a truck, restrain them, stun them ( or not ) and butcher them ( en masse, think genocide) is inhumane, barbaric, and hence wrong in a civilised society.

Furthermore, given this 'fighting chance' in the wild, the animal becomes part of the natural order of things and subject to evolutionary selection. The species becomes better adapted.

In contrast, we actively discourage the natural evolutionary process and instead selectively breed, genetically modify or simply nurture these animals into a state of dependency to drugs, antibiotics, whatever, so that we profit further and on top of this suffering.

If you know all this and don't care, I have nothing more to say. I just hope our evolutionary process speeds up so that there are more of us aiming to be more civilised towards all creatures on this planet and not see them, as in the biblical sense, here to feed us.

Furthermore, given this 'fighting chance' in the wild, the animal becomes part of the natural order of things and subject to evolutionary selection. The species becomes better adapted

Are you pro-hunting? Same arguments apply.

In contrast, we actively discourage the natural evolutionary process and instead selectively breed, genetically modify or simply nurture these animals into a state of dependency to drugs, antibiotics, whatever, so that we profit further and on top of this suffering.

Well, my experience of farming is the complete opposite of this description. Our animals are outdoor, cross-bred, hardy, healthy girls. We've been over and over the use of antiobiotics so I'm not going into that again. Drug dependent?? Aside from anything else, vets are expensive. It would be very poor business to keep animals that required so much veterinary intervention.

Eating meat / dairy is a choice. You feel strongly that it is morally wrong. That's your choice, Counter.

Quite often on this thread, though, you have defended that choice with a lot of incorrect information about UK farming practices. Several other posters with real farming experience have just pointed out where you are wrong and explained why. It's ok to have different opinions but it's even better to have well-informed opinions.

Natural selection is brutal and not civilised at all.
There's nothing morally wrong about eating animals. We naturally evolved eating animals. Eating animals allowed us to evolve past small groups in the savanna.
It certainly isn't genocide, FFS. Calling it genocide is making a mockery of actual instances of genocide. I'm not Jewish, for example, but I'm still offended by you misusing the term.
Get a grip.

You've also gone from animal welfare to welfare of the species.
These are different things.
I can't treat any of your posts or conflicting arguments as intellectually honest or sound.

You've argued a lot using emotive terms like "genocide" - which by the way definitely ISN'T what happens to farm animals, as there's be no point in completely wiping them out as there wouldn't be more for the next generation! Thank you though for using the term "slaughter", which despite some thinking is emotive is actually a correct technical term - I'm slightly surprised you didn't use "murder", which is definitely NOT a correct term as it relates to the killing of humans only.

But you haven't given us much on dairy farmers, or free range egg producers. Is that because it's harder to find highly emotive terms for well tended animals that live a long fruitful life?

"Are you pro-hunting? Same arguments apply"

You clearly do not understand evolution.

"You've argued a lot using emotive terms like "genocide" "

I've used it once! Definitions of genocide include:

"wholesale slaughter, mass slaughter, wholesale killing, "

I think all those are apt for my usage in the context.

Touched a nerve?

"Natural selection is brutal and not civilised at all."

Another idiotic statement.

Counter you've cropped that definition to exclude

'of a large group of people'

😂😂😂

I assume the Oxford English Dictionary is a good enough reference source for you?

"The deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or ethnic group."

Another idiotic statement.

I love the way you build your arguments. Darwin would have been proud.

You should definitely publish your thoughts.

counter when you call free range sheep farming barbaric alongside halal how much credibility do you believe it adds to the debate about the latter? I'll tell you, fuck all.

Halal slaughter of conscious animals (rather than pre stunned) is barbaric, I agree on that point. But for the general public, people such as you lumping it in with your ridiculous opinions on the general principle of slaughter really won't convince anyone you have a point. Ditto factory farming, live export etc.

Just out of curiosity, counterpoint, how to you stand on goats crossing bridges?

Some of you do not seem to understand synonyms:

Synonyms of genocide:
synonyms:
racial killing, massacre, wholesale slaughter, mass slaughter, wholesale killing, indiscriminate killing; mass murder, mass homicide, mass destruction, annihilation, extermination, elimination, liquidation, eradication, decimation, butchery, bloodbath, bloodletting; pogrom, ethnic cleansing, holocaust, Shoah;literaryslaying; rarebattue, hecatomb

So explain why it does not fit in to my usage (other than it shows you up as barbarians)?

"I love the way you build your arguments. Darwin would have been proud. "

"I love the way you build your arguments. Darwin would have been proud. "

I would take that as a compliment but you have already proven your ignorance on his theory.

Care to explain to us how hunting helps natural selection?

Or perhaps explain the joke of the forum:

"We naturally evolved eating animals"

Synonyms of genocide:
racial killing, massacre, wholesale slaughter, mass slaughter, wholesale killing, indiscriminate killing; mass murder, mass homicide, mass destruction, annihilation, extermination, elimination, liquidation, eradication, decimation, butchery, bloodbath, bloodletting; pogrom, ethnic cleansing, holocaust, Shoah;literaryslaying; rarebattue, hecatomb... of humans.

You can't have ethnic cleansing, racial killing or even murder of non-humans.

And many of those terms are not exactly synonyms of genocide.

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

Article II

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.html

Care to explain to us how hunting helps natural selection?

I didn't say it does...

And I'm glad you found the concept that humans evolved eating meat funny.
I'm sure the populations that developed tools for meat acquisition, treatment and consumption and thus differentiated themselves from other higher apes would find it funny too.
The whole story of how humans evolved is indeed hilarious.

Only one person on this thread has consistently proven their ignorance, and it's not lweji

We evolved into omnivorous animals, same as many primates especially those most closely related to us e.g. chimpanzees. Which means we eat both vegetable and animal matter. Many other types of animals are omnivorous e.g. pigs, many types of birds.

I understand synonyms well, also that because certain words can have very similar meanings in certain circumstances they aren't always directly replaceable. So for example mass destruction isn't exactly the same as mass murder - destruction can mean of anything, murder is specific to humans. Butchery can mean mass slaughter of people, but equally it can mean the cutting up and preparation of meat. To suggest that all synonyms of a word mean the same thing shows a rather shallow view of language.

"And many of those terms are not exactly synonyms of genocide. "

Take it up with the dictionary. Perhaps look up 'arrogance' whilst there.

Talk about 'selectivity'. You're all happy with the OP's euphemisms and anthropomorphisms, e.g calling her cattle her 'girls' but you really do not want to hear the truth about how these 'girls' are really treated!