Dog lovers aren’t animal lovers

[Namechanger1993]

I’ve been lurking in various dog related threads recently and it’s become abundantly clear how few dog owners on MN actually love animals. Not all. But lots.

Posters not caring about health tests on parents, or the breeders experience or ability or what happens to the bitch (mother of the pups) after as their desire for expensive mix outweighs their ethics about puppy farming or dogs being born in pain with chronic health issues as a result of bad breeding. Posters admitting their dogs have soiled themselves for a year before they put their dog to sleep. No matter which way you look at it (and believe me, I understand how hard it is to say goodbye), people who love their dogs don’t let them sleep in their shit for a year. Posters not exercising their dog sufficiently or not giving it mental stimulation and then wondering why its badly behaved.

Time and time again I’ve seen posters put their desire for a dog above any morals they might have about animal welfare (including their own dogs). welfare. Honestly, it’s quite shocking how little so many posters care about their dogs, or indeed the dogs use to produce their cute puppy.

Circle of life. Dogs are omnivores and would eat meat even without our intervention.

Eh what do you think happens at the end of a farm animal’s short useful life?

Much of the UK’s natural landscape has been destroyed by sheep grazing, we could always rewild it.

Most farm animals are bred before they're killed. I assume everyone saying "stop interfering" is happy for loads of species to just die out forever?

The UK also can't feed everyone a vegetarian diet with the land it has - so all we'll do is increase imports of plants into the country and damage the environment that way instead.

Saw a woman in the garden centre with a cockerpoo the other day.

Shopping for herbs, She would pick up a pot, ruffle the leaves, sniff it...

...and bend down and offer her patiently waiting dog the chance to sniff too 🥹

she loves her dog. ❤️

It’s lucky that this thread is so full of genuine dog lovers and properly educated dog owners. Unlike the other posters who clearly are totally unsuitable as pet owners, don’t know how to love or treat their dog and should be banned from dog ownership.
As a pp pointed out, parents might not be judged as suitable parents but they still have children and most of the time do their best.
anyway perhaps you’d all like to form a dog ownership assessment panel and decide who amongst us is worthy to own a dog.

🤦🏽‍♀️ yeah so just stop breeding and kill the existing farm animals. It’s still a lot less suffering than the current system.

A vegan diet is far less land intensive than a meat diet, a very quick Google will tell you that.

I’m not even advocating for a vegan diet for all, do what you want. Just don’t pretend you’re an animal lover when you’re not. You like your pet because of what your pet gives you, that’s all. It’s totally selfish.

Dogs are scavengers, and there is ample evidence they ate human shit as a service to humans to get it out of dwelling areas.

She loves her dog, she’s not an animal lover. I have genuine concerns about the breeding conditions to produce the amount of doodle crosses. That person isn’t an animal lover when the parents are most likely being abused.

I didn't enquire if her doodle was a rescue or bought as a puppy or what not.

I smiled to myself and moved on.

The farmed animals we have today are not a natural species. They have been interfered with to the Nth degree so they plump up fast, and die young. I am sure they'd rather not be bred only to be slaughtered. They'd have no consciousness about preserving their family lineage, would they. So what's the big deal if the cows and sheep who are bred to be slaughtered die out as a species? I'd happily save some safe areas for cows and sheep and pigs to have freedom, sure.

We can indeed all be vegan in this country, if we wanted to. Stop being so defeatist. We can build walled greenhouses and gardens, it's totally possible. We can encourage those with gardens and allotments to grow more vegetables, we can create community gardens to grow vegetables, this is happening in certain areas, and can be expanded upon.

I have been vegan for a very long time, and the change in the last 25 years has been amazing. I have no doubt it will continue along this trajectory, just wish some people weren't so stubborn about the change.

Yep, scavengers who eat meat (amongst other things, shit included - mine is especially partial to sheep and cow varieties).

We can indeed all be vegan in this country, if we wanted to. Stop being so defeatist. We can build walled greenhouses and gardens, it's totally possible. We can encourage those with gardens and allotments to grow more vegetables, we can create community gardens to grow vegetables, this is happening in certain areas, and can be expanded upon.

Do you honestly, genuinely believe we have enough land to feed 70 million people a vegan diet without importing? We don't.

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.

Mumsnet, please give us the vom react emoji.

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.

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

Ooh, yes please.

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.

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.

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