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.

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.

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.

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 ...

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!

Like I said, very idealistic

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

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.

@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.

@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.

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.

@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.

Probably not understanding (that's the autism for you).

Didn't you say earlier in the thread that you'd spoken to people about their dogs on walks before?

EDIT: you said you'd risk offending someone if you thought their dog was in pain.

If you spoke to me about my dog being in pain based on a snapshot of him limping, I would genuinely probably cry. Because it implies that I'm both stupid and uncaring, neither of which would be true.

Yes, I read about Bramble. It's very interesting. Still not convinced but maybe I'll try with the next dog. Don't know.

Re But it also may as well not be anyone...

If you adopt from a no-kill shelter, there is someone feeding them. I figure it may as well be me.

I think although not totally, we largely agree, and that's a refreshing change for me on MN 😀

True. I'm sure my lot don't look great on walks. I'm usually dragging the 17 yr old (who has walked that slow since she was a puppy and makes me pull her up hills!).
Then the 16 yr old is blind and has dementia so walks into things, stumbles, etc.
I'm sure they look rough to other people but they are both happy girls.

Also all my dogs were fed vegan food (like me!) for about 8 yrs, they were perfectly happy and healthy. I only recently went back to meat as their appetites had reduced and they needed more incentive.

I have a friend whose dogs are similar - they look doddery and confused on walks but they're healthy, regularly see the vet and are absolutely fine - just old.

I’m not vegan…mostly I just think dog ownership is dumb and selfish. And I’m capable of using Google to understand facts

All humans are selfish.

What a sad position to take.

It's true though. We're all sat here on devices, most likely made by slave labour in some factory somewhere, powered by batteries that destroy the planet, debating on an online forum about something that, really, in the grand scheme of things, doesn't matter in the slightest.

Most people will also have children, drive cars and do multiple things a day that are purely for their own benefit or enjoyment. There is not a single person on this planet who isn't selfish, with the exception of very small children.

I hear ya!

However ...

I still maintain that taking a dog from a no kill shelter just perpetuates dog ownership and the cycle of death at slaughterhouses. If people stopped taking them on (I despise the term adopted), they would have to rethink their model. I do think taking on dogs from shelters is merely prolonging the inevitable. I am sure you are attached to the dog you have, which colours your view. But from my perspective, your dog is no more deserving of life than the x number of farmed animals killed to keep it alive.

And not aimed at you in particular, but all dog owners. Dog ownership (and pets, really) are detrimental to the ecosystem. They are against the natural order of things. They are bad for the planet. We talk about being ecologically responsible in this thread, people talk about being agains aviation and importation, but dogs and cats cause a LOT of harm. People need to think beyond the ball of fluffy snuggles in front of them, and really think outside the mainstream narrative.

Anyway. Back to the main OP! If people must have dogs I do at least wish they'd stop proclaiming to be animal lovers.

Why is it "dumb"?
I get that you consider it selfish, and I do agree that many dog owners are selfish. They don't consider that their dog would rather be running around the fields, being a dog, than trailing around a shopping centre or sitting in a coffee shop.
But why dumb exactly?

These are good points well made. Fair enough. I do have children (only two). I do obviously have a phone, because we simply can't manage in this country without one. Mine is four years old, and I only replace them when they are on their last legs. My laptop is pre-loved (not especially an eco choice, but a financial one, but still, I do try to use pre-loved where possible). I also have a car but will give it up the second I possibly can, because I am sick of driving (think it's a menopause thing!) and the cost is pissing me off. Literally can't get my children where they need to go in time without it though. But yes - point taken.

I do think that 'in the grand scheme of things' this chat forum DOES matter though, and changes are made. People have changed my mind on some things due to this forum. And I remember posting about veganism on here over 15 years ago when I was pregnant with my first child, and was universally shut down. Now we have a whole vegan section - its own board, no less! So change does happen, and discussions do help. I wouldn't waste my time otherwise.

I do think that 'in the grand scheme of things' this chat forum DOES matter

Well, I'll have to disagree with that. It may change the mind of a few people, but humans are selfish, always have been, always will be. Even if we all become vegan, we will still be selfish as a species. That's how we've progressed - it's our survival instincts.

Sadly, I can't disagree with much of that. Wish I could but I can't. And you're right, my dog is by far them most important relationship in my life. I took her on to help her but for my benefit too. Hmm, more thinking required!

I was thinking about her diet too and domesticated dogs' diets in general. One poster upthread I think said that 6million animals are slaughtered in the UK in order to feed pets (I might not have remembered that right). I'm uncomfortable with that but I also don't know if it's accurate and I'm not sure there is a way to find out with any certainty. What I would say though is that some dogs actually eat very little meat. Take a can of Pedigree Chum. It's a shit food but it sells so dogs are being fed it but it contains (difficult to work out to be honest) about 10% Meat and Animal Derivatives. Much of it is cereal but that comes at a cost to living creatures too. Harvey Weinstein has just come on TV - perhaps I could feed her him!

Edited to say: I don't have kids so I am doing well for the planet there!