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.

Of course dog lovers aren't animal lovers. The vast majority of them eat them. Call yourself a dog lover or a cat lover, but you're not an animal lover if you eat them...

I think animal lover is the wrong term. Animal respecter might be better.

Humans created dogs 😂😂😂😂😂

I always feel sorry for indoor cats too.

At the very least people shouldn’t get a cat unless they are willing to pay for a Catio or other outside enclosure if they feel their road is too busy to be safe (but also, don’t get a cat if you live on a busy road).

This is really interesting.
Please correct me if I am wrong, I don’t know too much about the KC but when I was googling my pup’s ancestors from his KC certificate, many of them are working labs and several had ‘FT CH’ before their name (which I had to google) so am I right in thinking the KC also has field trials for working dogs too?

Many dog owners don't like animals in general. They just like their dog as a part of themselves.

How many of them let them chase or scare wildlife, annoy other dogs or cats, all those interactions when their dog them is the only animal which matters.

That figures, should have know you were a vegan.

You know what I meant. Dogs as they are now. The weird over-bred inbred manipulated for specific traits dogs.

I don't really think you know anything about dogs at all.

Yes, they do. But you can only run a KC registered pedigree dog in a KC trial - there is no crossbreed registry for that.

If a dog becomes a FTCh and also a ShCh, it's what's called a dual champion. Very few of those crop up these days, and never in the spaniels and retrievers as the field lines do not win in the show ring.

Dogs and cats cause significantly less harm to the ecosystem and planet than humans! I would never have kids and would never breed animals for pets or money, but don't see an issue with looking after an animal someone has dumped in a shelter and giving it the best life I can. If everyone stopped taking animals from shelters tomorrow, all that would happen is those animals would die.

If we dissect every environmentally damaging/selfish thing a human does in their daily life, there wouldn't be anything 'fun' left. Also who gets to be the final moral arbiter of what is acceptable and what isn't? If someone eats meat and has a pet dog, but doesn't have children and never travels abroad, is that worse for the environment than a vegan with a couple of kids who goes on holiday every year? How do people quantify these things in their mind to get worked up over people making different life choices to them? Are vets allowed to eat meat or does that go against the work they do to help animals?

The impact of our existence is so insignificant in the grand scheme of time and space that arguing that over whether someone didn't do life as well as you because they ate meat or had a pet dog is a bit silly really.

Very well said.

Having children is one of the worst things we can do environmentally yet we have posters here with multiple kids berating anyone who owns a dog 🙈

"We can indeed all be vegan in this country, if we wanted to. Stop being so defeatist."

No we can't, and it is ableist to suggest so.

Keep telling yourself that dearie. While you're convincing yourself take at look at some abattoir footage & then say you're an animal lover.

What a nasty post. Enjoy eating that KFC after the chicken sat in its own poo and then was gassed ( all the time probably posting about your fur baby on Instagram)

Everything that lives, dies.
There are far worse ways to go than pre-stunned slaughter.

NB Patronising people is not a good way to get them onside.

Exactly, it’s not like animals die a lovely, peaceful death in the natural world.

They get carted onto a lorry, packed in like sardines. Often travelling great distances to then queue up with the smell of blood and the sounds of other animals in great distress.

It is a horrible distressing procedure. Lucky if they are stunned first what with all the halal that has seeped in to our supermarket shelves most aren't stunned they are hung upside down and bleed to death.

You make out the bacon fairy sneaks in in the middle of the night and puts them to sleep without any suffering.

Eat meat if you must but do watch clips of slaughterhouse procedure just so you're fully informed of what suffering goes into your greasy burgers and bacon butties.

I have to say if you have kids, I don't see how you can really claim to care about other animals or the environment. The main challenge many animals face is lack of living space because so much of it has been taken over by humans. Adding to that number isn't going to help. Also most humans go on to have children and no one know how those children or their children's children are going to turn out: they could be massive carnivores.

I was feeling bad about having a dog but what would be the option for her? I do think about feeding her a vegan diet but I'm not convinced and vegan food is not cruelty free anyway. So my only option would be to put her to sleep. And I'm not going to do that. She does eat other animals but I am unconvinced that animals are being killed for pet food. There must be so much of the carcass left after humans have taken what they want. Which brings me back to kids. That's what we need to stop. Humans breeding or breeding in the numbers that they do at least.

Oh, are we having a competition for who has less impact on the planet? Jolly good!

Here's my entry.
No kids
No car (though partner has an old Skoda estate)
No tv or smartphone.
I've never once been on a plane in my entire life!
But I've lived with dogs for 50 years.
I'm vegetarian but my dog is not.

Am I really harming the ecosystem more than a vegan with two kids and a car, just because I buy local cheese and local milk and feed my dog a bit of kibble?

You make out the bacon fairy sneaks in in the middle of the night and puts them to sleep without any suffering.
I did nothing of the sort.

Putting words into the mouths of other people doesn't help your case at all.

Yep, I do think anyone who has children or goes abroad and is also banging on about how we need to eat a vegan diet to save the planet is being massively hypocritical.

Go vegan by all means, but don’t act like you’re doing it to save the planet when you made the decision to reproduce 🫣

Depends. Does the Vegan regularly consume imported avocados and products containing palm oil?

Just like many parents don’t like children in general, only their own as part of themselves, and often let them run riot in restaurants and other inappropriate places.

You make out the bacon fairy sneaks in in the middle of the night and puts them to sleep without any suffering.

Absolutely nobody has said anything of the sort.

There’s also rarely ever such a thing as death without suffering - unfortunately that’s part of life. FWIW I’ve seen videos of slaughterhouses and live surrounded by farms - it doesn’t put me off eating meat in the slightest 🤷‍♀️