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Eat your greens :yuck:
As stated, pigs are also clever animals.
There is no need to eat chicken or fish either but you do so by choice. And unless you only eat free range or organic chicken, then the chicken you eat is going to have been kept in horrific conditions.
As for the dogs, some are kept well, some aren't, bit like all meat in this country. Being strung up and beaten (allegedly) is no worse than what battery hens go through in their short lifespan.
For fish - I hope you only eat that from sustainable supplies and it hasn't been caught by dredging or using trawler nets. E.g. tuna, with the nets dolphins are caught in the nets too and they've more intelligent than dogs so you're killing them by eating it.
Dairy products - a large proportion of the cattle in this country suffers from lameness or mastitis cos they have been so overbred for milk production purposes, etc etc.
If you eat any sort of animal products then you don't really have the grounds to go judge other people on their eating habits really.
That is too simplistic. You should have said, "if you don't care where or how your current meat is produced, then you have no grounds to go judge other people on their eating habits". There is a big difference.
Or rather... people have no right to judge what animals people eat as long as they've been raised to the same standards as the meat that they choose to eat.
The welfare issue i can understand, but why is eating dog meat inherently wrong if you already eat meat of any sort? People here eat rabbits but they also keep them as pets, how is that any different to what happens with dogs in parts of china?
Thats me and yes your right.
As for my opinion. I don't eat any meat, I wouldn't dream of eating a dog... or should I say "dog meat" as that's a bit less emotive. It's no more of balanced or considered view than that... I consider my family's dog to be as much a family member as any of us, and I consider all dogs to be the kin of the dogs I've known and loved in my lifetime. We had pet rabbits when I was a child, I'd no sooner have eaten them than I would've gnawed my brother's arm off. It's possible that my POV is fairly irrelevant anyway, as I don't eat any meat and haven't for years now. That said, I occasionally buy meat for my family and it goes without saying that it is the best quality and reared to the best standards that I can find. I go a little crazy over it, but if you can't go a little crazy over what you do for your children then what can you? I still wouldn't feed dog meat to my daughters, for no reason other than, as Rach said it's conditioning. It may be a wimpy attitude and if I'd been born in Korea then I'd think differently, possibly, but I don't and never will think differently so long as I have this mind in my head (mind transplants anyone?). The idea of it makes me shudder, but that goes for any animal.
I'd probably eat dog meat if it had been neatly prepared and then presented to me on a plate with some potatoes, a bit of veg and some gravy. Chances are I'm not going to find a street vendor and get some dog-onna-stick, but then I wouldn't get any other meet from somewhere I didn't like the look of, either.
It's also a non-argument to say that you wouldn't eat it because it could be someone's pet. People keep all sorts of animals for pets around the world. It's a very vague line of distinction on which to make a moral judgement.
Would you find it ok if it was a picture of a rabbit or cow carcass?
If so then what's the difference?
And even if you didn't then if you can't take looking at where your meat comes from then you shouldn't be eating it really.
That said why is it any worse than seeing a picture of a cow in a butcher's shop?
I agree with this. Posting what are supposed to be shocking images has a very limited value to this debate. I don't really see if there's any point to be made with them either? There didn't seem to be any debatable points that were included in the posts containing the images.
On the other hand, I don't know if it's my heritage or what but I didn't find these pictures particularly shocking. I'm used to seeing sheep heads cut in two halves in local grocery stores.
I have the same view to all slaughter regardless of the animal, if it's treated well while alive and slaughtered as humanely as possible, I don't make a difference whether it's a cow, croc or a dog.
I agree that if you eat meat yet are still shocked by the images of meat being prepared maybe you shoudl think twice about your diet. I think the photo's were useful in that sense - to see how well removed people are from the realities of life.
Species eat other species, people eat other species - and whether or not you a meat eater or a vegetarian I think it's something you have to accept. It's life and death.
So this might be an interesting question for the vegetarians here. If someone gave you the option, and you had to choose one, of eating a vegetarian omelette made with battery-farmed eggs, or a meat dish made from an animal that had been shot after a lifetime of living in the wild, which would you choose? Or if you don't think you can answer, at least which of those two products are the most morally justifiable? Because the answer is pretty clear to me. Incidentally, that doesn't mean that I for one second don't recognise the huge problems in the meat industry generally (or should I say the animal products industry). But I just don't recognise the argument that it's wrong to take a life just because it's a life. Suffering is the key point, otherwise you're being just as immoral taking the life of a cabbage or lettuce.
I think GWST makes a good point though. I don't think that dogs particularly lend themselves to being farmed in a way that would in some way reflect their natural state.
It is an interesting evolutionary point that dogs were never farm animals until relatively recently in some countries - It's pretty much accepted that this evolution occured as Grey Wolves were used as part of hunting parties somewhere around 10 - 15,000 years ago.
Without dogs being used as domestic and hunting animals, not farm animals, they simply wouldn't have exist.
Obviously in later stages of history the number of dogs and the starvation in a region leads to them being used as cattle - but given their evolutionary roots, the part we've played in their development and the part they've played in mankinds development it's enough of reason for me not to choose to eat dog.
Is worth noting that the eating of dog as an emergency measure is pretty wide-spread - with dog meat eaten, for example, in the early 20th century in Germany, and that assumptions about an east/west cultural division tend to be more complex than people assume. For example in South Korea there is a growing campaign against the eating of dog as cruelty and of course huge percentages of asian countries would never eat dog for religious reasons.
I don't eat pork either. And I don't judge other people on their eating habits. Although people seem to judge me on my personal choices all the time. It gets really boring having to explain to people why I want to eat one thing but not another.
You started the thread.