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.

Why is eating meat any different to taking advantage of modern medicine to cure illness? Plenty of drugs have been tested on animals before being prescribed to humans. We live in an imperfect world and if being vegan makes you feel better about your impact on the planet, then that's great. Life is short and people should be encouraged to live in a way which makes them happy, but I think trying to claim some kind of moral superiority for not eating meat is a little odd.

No we are not. You may be but no one else is. Anyway, none of it matters really, the world as we know it is fecked and turning your heating down a notch and not driving a car is not going to make the slightest bit of difference.

Agreed. Most of us can have a positive impact on the planet without being too evangelical about it. And yes, you CAN pick and choose based on what suits your lifestyle best. If that was the main message, people would be more inclined to do something.

Plenty of drugs have been tested on animals before being prescribed to humans.

Before is the important word here. It should never have been done but it has and the drugs exist.

Humour about it being a competition. You know. Funny. Irony/sarcasm....?

Oh, silly me! I forgot! Vegans don't do irony/humour, do they...? Everything is literal and robotic. My mistake. As you were 😏

YANBU. Certain dog breeds are not a pet but a weapon. Ownership needs to be highly regulated, not the current free for all.

Keep telling yourself that. Factory farmed animals that are bred in vile conditions simply for slaughter are a world away from a natural death in the wild

Pre stunned slaughter after a lifetime of misery never seeing daylight & a high chance of being abused by the animals that work in those places.

I don’t need to tell myself that, I’ve seen both.

FWIW your comments are just patronising and won’t do anything to help your cause.

@CoubousAndTourmalet
Ah, the old you can't take a joke reply. The old ones are the best, eh?

I think all the free range animals out enjoying the sunshine in the fields today may disagree with your comments about never seeing sunlight 😉

Big Mac anyone 😆

Whatever you say. You're the expert on dogs, after all. The rest of us know nothing.

Ooh no, rare steak if you’re buying 😂

😆 I settled for a mini pork pie, dogs not impressed 😁

Please! I’m a dog owner and I love eating animals

Ooh my beagle would have that off you in seconds 🤣

This is true. Up to a point. But there are different ways of looking at it. Certainly there are status dog breeds but sadly, that has always been the case and will probably never change. Regulation solves nothing because people will just ignore it. But that is an entirely different subject.

'Why is eating meat any different to taking advantage of modern medicine to cure illness? Plenty of drugs have been tested on animals before being prescribed to humans.'

Hmm what's the difference between animals suffering so you can enjoy a pork pie or essential testing to develop medicines? I mean it isn't difficult is it, one is for greed/pleasure the other is for treatment. It's about priorities and necessities. We can live without bacon butties, we can't live without medication.

Hardly drink the stuff now, had this name for over 10 years.

I mean - sure OP, there are bad dog owners out there.

But there are also people who have differing opinions about what constitutes poor animal welfare. Your personal views on what counts as a "good" owner aren't self-evident.

Example: I keep poultry, free range. For two reasons, one being I live in an area with a lot of ticks that carry Lyme disease, and it keeps them under control. I also think it's healthier and a better life for the birds, even though there is the risk of predation. I've had poultry breeders refuse to sell birds to me because it is apparently horrible not to keep birds their whole lives in a completely enclosed coop in order to prevent them being eaten by predators or catching diseases (though close quarters are a much bigger disease risk imo.)

Similarly, I think the official breeding systems for purebred dogs are damaging and fundamentally flawed - even much of the testing done and the restrictions on breeding "pet" dogs - because it allows people to think that issues in the breed are really being addressed, when in fact the main effect is to further restrict the genetic variation in the population which long term will be the destruction of many breeds and actually locks in problems.

Oh and are all the vegans out in force this morning.

@redboxer321
Is what you said to me not nasty? It's certainly belittling, when I was trying to be lighthearted on a goady thread.

There's a lot of nasty stuff on this thread. Saying you'd tackle someone if you thought their dog was suffering, is that not nasty when you don't know their circumstances?

FWW I agree with some of what you say.

Anyway, I'm done.

Same time I was going to bed, night shift.