Is it actually cruel to eat cats and dogs?

No more wrong that eating any other animal. It’s just cultural norms; there are plenty of places in the world that do still eat animals that we consider pets.

What’s truly morally “wrong” is producing and slaughtering any animals in an inhumane manner.

@syz well the man in the article was arrested for preparing to eat his cat. Apparently it’s considered animal cruelty.

I don’t think it’s any more wrong than eating any other animal. Course, I love me a good steak.

No, the man in the article was arrested for having a “marinated” cat in his trunk. That was cruelty issue.

It may just be a cultural thing. I believe they (cats and dogs) are eaten in other cultures. And when you are eating out, you really don’t know what you’re eating.

The cruelty comes in how you treat the animal when it’s alive not when you eat it.

I love to eat… Cat. ;-)

I’m with @syz 100% – anyone that say they’re an animal lover and wouldn’t eat their dog for nothing are gigantic hypocrites because they neglect the abuses the animals go through before they’re put on the dinner table – I ate chicken and sushi like it was my job for quite a lot of my life – finally, it all clicked some months ago and it makes no sense to eat any animals, for me but the law, as in this man’s case, is stupid because the government is willingly turning a blind eye to animal cruelty going on under its nose but this they’ll prosecute.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir excellent point. And kind of what I was getting at, really. What gives us the right to put one animal on a pedestal over another? What makes a cat’s life more valuable than a cow’s?

@TheOnlyNeffie Cultural norms, that is all – completely arbitrary and also because cows can be used in more ways that cats.

We treat cats and dogs as if they are part of our families. Most often eating cats and dogs is therefore considered different from eating an animal that is kept and raised for slaughter.

A father feeding his family a rabbit steak that he bought at Stop ‘n Shop is quite OK, but he would definitely loose some points with them if he were to feed grape stewed Fluffy to dear Marie, she would not appreciate to see her pet on the dinner table. One doesn’t eat family.

I’m guessing that dog tastes a bit woof…....wow I actually said that out loud, never mind it’s done now.
Now as for as munching on pussy goes, well that’s a different matter altogether.

In china they eat cats and dogs. Here is the US it is cruelity .. Every country has it’s law and what is ok and not. I personally. eat meat but would not find cat or dog appetizing . Some would say yummy to. eating cow. Some don’t. To each to his or her own.

@whitenoise we ate our pen raised rabbits every year. They all had names and most of them liked to be petted.

The bacon we ate came from my uncle’s farm. He raised a couple pigs a year for the extended family. We all helped process them.

I guess it is all in how and where you are raised.
You do what you have to do to feed your family.

No.

The cruelty is not in the eating of anything, it is in the manner of which the animal is dispatched.

Every culture has it’s preferences based on whats available.

What we perceive as okay to eat is all a matter of conditioning.

Personally I wouldn’t eat dog or cat, but I also wouldn’t eat snake or grubs either. lol

If given the oppurtunity i would eat dog. I dont mention cat because im pretty certain I already have. chinese place in town got closed down for serving cat….

@uberbatman really? I always thought that was sort of an urban legend type of thing. I didn’t think it really happened.

I would like to make clear that while SOME asian cultures, especially the more rural provences do eat cats & dogs, the practice is diminishing and is not to be classified in any sterotypical fashion.

I traveled in asia last year, and the humane movement is alive and well, as it is in many countries.

In Taiwan there are shelters and humane socities and I witnessed a darling little woman that came on her bicycle twice a day to feed about a dozen street cats that lived around my apartment building, as well as numerous pampered small dogs.

While this practice does occur it is not to be a defining slant on asian cultures anymore than any other stereotype.

If you’ve ever been in a “meat processing plant” you might reconsider wether the animals are “humanely dispatched.”

@Adirondackwannabe That is one reason I prefer to harvest and process my own meat. I don’t have to rely on people I don’t know to do what I consider humane.

@Adirondackwannabe

Of course, that’s why I eat little meat in general.

And why I am so passionate about my geese, no down comfortors and fois gras will come out of my flappy footed friends. :-)

@WestRiverrat, @Coloma GA’s, and don’t even get me started on fois gras.

@Adirondackwannabe

Supposedly the California Fois Gras industry is going to shut down by something like 2012–2014…so I have heard, but have not researched the bill fully yet.

Maybe there should be a NSFblank for questions like these. I read the beginning of the article and just went back and read the entire article.If you haven’t read it don’t if you don’t have a strong stomach. That’s barbaric. No animal should ever be treated that way.

@Coloma GEESE!? I love all animals, but geese!? geese are just fucking assholes. If i could do with any animal being wiped from this earth, it would certainly be them.

“I’m opposed to any and all types of animal cruelty…well, except when it concerns geese. I seriously dislike them.”-Ford Prefect

Is everyone else just waiting for the explosion?
Edit Very nicely done coloma. That was a classy answer.

@uberbatman

Well…they are teritorial and aggressive especially during breeding season, Feb-June.

Most peoples encounters with geese come from feral geese at parks and other places.

If you raise them from goslings they are extremely imprinted on you and very smart and quirky.

My chinese gander knows about 20 words, comes in the house, follows me everywhere like a dog and even knows the hand signals and commands of ‘stay’ and ‘wait.’

He is semi-housebroken and can be indoors for a long time without an accident.

He climbs stairs, knows how to get the bread bag off the shelf and in general is a real nut.

He’s the bomb!

Way I look at it, if you choose to eat animals, you should be open to the idea of eating all animals. Not that you would necessarily try them all, but be aware that someone, somewhere would munch on your beloved “Fluffy” in a heartbeat (with a nice dipping sauce to boot).

I became acutely aware of this while in China. Many street vendors and restaurants offered up puppies, kittens, bunnies, frogs, turtles and more for immediate snacking. All considered “pets” here in the US. and I won’t even bring up the scorpions.

As far as “cruelty” goes, @tinyfaery hit the nail on the head: “The cruelty comes in how you treat the animal when it’s alive not when you eat it.”

@Coloma so a domesticated goose is good. But wild ones are still assholes.

that is cool that you have a pet goose though.

@cprevite did you try any of it?

@uberbatman: I tried the frog and had a cheeseburger that was part dog. Both averagely tasty. I didn’t try the bunny, but I’ve had it before here in the US.

I wanted to try the scorpions, but my wife wouldn’t let me.

@uberbatman

Any goose will imprint on you if you raise them from goslinghood. Wild or otherwise.

The Chinese geese ( domestic ) are the most intelligent and talkative and very curious and personable.

They can live over 20 years and make great pets if raised from babies.

Adults without imprinting can be tamed down but usually remain rather aloof.

Althoguh my female was a rescue, she was blinded in one eye by a fish hook and now, after 2 years she is very bonded to me.

It’s all about trust and kindness, isn’t it always? ;-)

And a good eye. ;-)

@ChazMaz

Yeah, helps to stay on her good side. lol

Only to animal rights types, so no.

@Coloma makes me wish I had a goose.
I recently was granted “joint custody” of the neighbor kid’s pet chicken, but now I need to add a goose to the mix.

I need a farm in my life. I want a “flappy footed friend” that made me laugh out loud.

When you’re hungry enough, you’ll eat almost anything.

@CaptainHarley That’s a given. But marinating it while it’s still alive?

@Adirondackwannabe of course that is wrong.

And @CaptainHarley of course the will to survive is a powerful thing.

But I’m not necessarily asking about what you’ll do when you have to. What about those who make a conscious decision to do it? Would you be comfortable with someone raising cats with the intentions of eating them?

I don’t see anything wrong with it, but such small animals wouldn’t have much meat on them for all the trouble of skinning and butchering them.

They said that about quail.

I would certainly chew gently.

@YARNLADY chickens arent exactly large animals…..

cornish hen….

They are after you pump them up with steroids.
And so tasty.

@ChazMaz At least you know what you’re consuming. That makes me feel a little better.—Not so much for the animals, but that you make the choice to eat unhealthily with full knowledge of what you’re doing..others don’t have luxuries of choice or knowledge.

Word.

@deadhead Well that’s helpful. Thanks for that.

I think @syz said it all. I do, however, find it despicable that dogs and particularly cats are eaten anywhere in the world, as i love my cats SO much, they’re like my children, so it’s unbearable thinking about others like them being eaten.
If i had things my way, nobody would be eating meat at all, as i find it wholly unnecessary. And, factory farming is one of the biggest disgraces to ever befall humanity.

@deadhead are you talking to me??

@TheOnlyNeffie Said in your most menacing De Niro voice :¬)

@ChazMaz you raise a very good point there sir. But Im sure if dogs and cats were consumed in america they would be the same way.

@NaturallyMe “If i had things my way, nobody would be eating meat at all, as i find it wholly unnecessary.” You do realize how much of the worlds population survives on meat right? How exactly do you plan on feeding all these people now?

@deadhead uhhhh wtf mate?

@uberbatman Actually, I have read that if all the fields that are used to grow cattle can be replaced with crops, no one would go hungry. Also, the hunger of the world has a lot more to do with power structures, economics and global politics than whether it’s meat we need or veggies. I had a fun chart back home, maybe I’ll look it up. The whole ‘we must make more meat because we must feed more people’ is wonderfully shown to be a myth in it.

@uberbatman Meh. I’m more of an animal activist. Besides, i agree with what Simone has just said.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I agree that the consumption of meat is high, especially in america, its retardedly high. But thinking about the entire world… you simply can not do without meat with the amount of people we have. I had a class that covered this pretty in depth, there is simply not enough land for farming to feed that many people.

And remember not all meat consumption is farmed on land. Think of all the island countries that rely very very heavily on fish…

i would love to see your book though..

@Simone_De_Beauvoir We tried to do that once. We had the dirty 30s as a result. Land that is properly grazed every year does not erode nearly as fast as land that is plowed up to grow corn.

Believe me, farmers can make more money per acre growing corn than beef. But if you cannot sustain the land growing corn but can growing cows, you will grow cows.

I don’t want to eat cats or dogs and I don’t want my dogs eaten by anyone but it truly is no different than eating any other animal so I don’t judge. Virtually all animals are carnivorous and predators. Humans are no different, we are simply at the top of the food chain so we can have our choice and again I have no problem with that, it is the way of nature.

But I refuse to buy factory farmed products. I buy only from a butcher shop where I know the meat is grass fed and humanely slaughtered, no feed lots. It is more difficult to source chicken but I am working on it. In the meantime I buy the chicken from the supermarket that is marked “free range” even though I don’t believe it means the same thing that I mean by free range.

Every individual changing their buying habits is the best way to change the way animals are handled, your dollar speaks much louder than any politician.

@rooeytoo I buy my chickens from the local Hutterite Colony. They still free range their chickens around here.

Another option is to raise your own. Chickens are not that hard to raise if you have room and the local Zoning Board allows it.

@WestRiverrat – I love having my own chickens but unfortunately I have a dingo dog with very high prey drive, I am afraid my chooks would be her dinner before they would make it to my table. My neighbor has a few though and they often share the eggs, they are so good!

@deadhead the purpose of this question is to inspire discussion.

Eating is a fact of life. Fortunately we live in a time where many of us have choices as to what we put on our plates. That isn’t the case for everyone, and it certainly hasn’t always been the case for human beings throughout time.

Being conscious of the decisions we make in regards to what we put in our mouths and why we make them is not morbid, and I’m sorry you are having such a hard time accepting that.

Just for the record… this is my face.

[mod says] Flame off, folks. Let’s not make this personal.

@TheOnlyNeffie: Try smaller words.

Sorry.

Oh my, much has unfolded since I went to work and came home. lol

Okay…well..since I am an advocate of geese, here’s a few more geese facts.

Geese were used as gaurds in ancient Rome, they were excellent at detecting any slight strange activity in their space.

They were also given in pairs as wedding gifts to symbolize devotion and longevity of marriage.

The average large breed goose yields about ¼ lb. of down, so go figure how many poor geezers go into that decorative pillow, let alone a jacket or a comforter. :-(

Od course their feathers are simply ‘byproducts’ after the fois gras producers have their way with them.

Okay, so is leather.

My hardcore militant dsys are long gone, but, I do what feels right to me, and I love geese!

If someone had told me 15 years ago that ,y alltime favorite pet would be a goose I never would have believed them. lol

EVERY living creature has the potential of excelling in it’s perfect intelligence, even a cockroach.

Put enough time, attention and love into something and it will exceed it’s stereotype, I gaurentee it!

People eat what they eat, but one should never forget that whats on your plate could also be the catalyst for a life changing experience.

@Coloma ive been thinking about your whole geese are friendly thing. And I keep coming back to the same thing, they are fucking assholes by nature. I mean sure I could train a lion from birth to be a lovable hug-able animal, but if i saw it in the wild it was still eat me in a heart beat.

Ill have to also disagree with “EVERY living creature has the potential of excelling in it’s perfect intelligence, even a cockroach” I can think of quite a few that dont even have brains :P

@uberbatman

Well..I’m not talking about trying to bring out the intelligence and personality of an ameoba. lol

Just sayin’ that often, without hands on experience. it is easy to judge based on heresay.

Geese are very intelligent, sensitive creatures, very much creatures of habit like a dog or a cat. They don’t like changes in their routines.

I am also not advocating trying to tuen a lion into a laptcat, that would be pure stupidity, but..I AM saying that there is a lot of untapped potential in everything animal, just like in every human.

Your attitude about geese is not unlike many attitudes about other races.

If your experiences have been bad you are biased perhaps, but not able to make a complete blanket statement without the total goose experience. lol

It’s like those that say that Turkeys are dumb.
Compared to what, you? haha

My retort is that Turkeys are smart enough to be what they are, Turkeys.

Works for them.

I beleive that everything is perfect for what it is, so, it is pointless and stupid to say otherwise.

Geese do a damn fine job of being what they were intended to be, geese. :-)

@uberbatman http://www.foodfirst.org/en/pubs/backgrdrs/1998/s98v5n3.html

really glad much was removed so that I don’t have to get angry

It is a cultural choice.
That being said, I couldn’t do it.

A childhood friend had an Easter peep that she named and raised. But he became dinner. That freaked her out. Hard to name a critter aned then eat it.

To some religion in India [Hindoo?], cows are sacred and are never eaten. Dogs and cats are eaten in Cina and dogs [chihuahuas] are eaten in Mexico. That’s probably why they were bred to be hairless.

and turkeys are dumb. a friend who did aliyah on a kibbutz many years ago said the turkeys turned their faces up when it rained, open-mouthed, and sometimes drowned. Not rocket scientists, turkeys.

In my opinion, I could never even consider eating a cat or a dog. I think its cruel:( But, I’m not going to put someone down because they do it. Some people were raised into thinking its normal, and for some people it is. It’s just abnormal for me, cause I was taught cats and dogs are pets and not dinner.

Like you, I am a lover of cats and, especially dogs. The thought of these animals ending up as someone’s meal is rather sickening. I will admit however, I have no rational argument as to why this disturbs me more than thoughts of the commonly consumed creatures (where I live and in my culture) meeting the same demise. I know ties I have to my own pets, as well as feelings of endearment for cats and dogs in general is a significant factor, but this alone is not justification for having higher regard for certain species. I was in a sheep 4H growing up and viewed the lambs I raised into adulthood as pets also. The thought of chowing down on a rack of lamb or plate of mutton also disturbs me. If I had raised pigs, cows, etc… I am sure I would think of them the same way.
When it comes down to it, I feel consuming any species of animal is morally problematic. Eating what was once a living creature (I draw the line at plants) seems rather barbaric, though my biggest issue is with the inhumane captivity and slaughter. I am slightly less bothered when the animals in question are free range. My beliefs are mainly based on what is right or wrong for me personally. I have strong opinions about the mistreatment of animals, but in a world where all is humane, I would not judge other people’s choices of diet. I recognize there are different beliefs and resources in various places and among various cultures, and my views are not straight across the board. My actions are apparently only sporatically motivated by my morals as, even though I’ve eliminated most meat from my diet, I still cave in to a chicken burger every now and then. I’ve tried to rationalize this with the “whether or not an animal is okay to eat must be weighed on a cute and cuddly scale” argument, but have a hard time making that one fly! Call me a failed vegetarian who is still working on it!

@Coloma ameoba arent animals. But starfish and jellyfish are.yay all us jellies are brainless :P

Anyway, about my distaste for geese. Animals have behavioral traits. Every animal on this planet does. This is what biologists do, study animals and observe their behavior. Obviously, some will be different from the rest, but the fact of the matter remains that as a species, they behave in a certain manner. Hooray you have a goose you trained to be nice, that still doenst change the fact that the rest of the wild (way nature intended) geese are assholes. The only reason your goose is nice to you is because it thinks you are its parent and you got it used to humans. You raised the thing from birth. You changed the gooses natural behavior greatly. Otherwise, it would probably be chasing you down a street or something, nipping at your heels. “I am also not advocating trying to tuen a lion into a laptcat, that would be pure stupidity,” Eh people do it and are completely fine with it. Ive seen quite a few documentaries. They are just altering their natural behaviors.

I just dont see why the possibility for animal intelligence is a reason not to ever eat said animal? I am a huge fish nerd. I know fish are capable of interactive behavior my friend had a fish that would watch tv with him , the ability to recognize their owners, and learn things. Mantis shrimp are one of the smartest animals in the ocean next to octopodes and dolphins, but id still eat a mantis shrimp given the opportunity. Why? They are fucking tasty. It is how things work in nature after all, we are just at the top of the food chain. Should lions stop eating zebras because they may have feelings? i am however not at all advocating the mass farming and mistreatment of species as i said above, I think we should be more sustainable.
@Simone_De_Beauvoir thanks ill read that later, its 3am and im falling asleep

Not if you live in a culture where is generally accepted. Is it cruel to eat beef in the US? No. In India?

@uberbatman

I am not disagreeing with peoples eating preferences, they are what they are.

I am just saying that to call any animal an asshole is kinda overkill ( pun intended )

It implies they are consciously choosing to harass you and makes an association of deliberation like humans are famous for.

‘Asshole’ just doesn’t apply.

How can something be an asshole when it is simply behaving in the way it was designed to behave for optimum survival of itself and it’s offspring?

Consider yourself lucky to get goosed, opposed to slaughtered by a mama bear. hahaha :-)

I prefer the word bung.

@ChazMaz

Uh..I don’t follow?
Maybe I don’t want to know. lol

asshole = Bung

@ChazMaz Isn’t it technically bunghole?

A bung is closure to seal a container.
I tried to be more general about it.

Part of the process of removing the intestinal tract from a cow is called rimming the bung.
some more useless trivia

Rimming the bung. I truly have learned a lot from this discussion on cruelty, assholes, and bungs. GQ Neffie.

@ChazMaz
@Adirondackwannabe

Thanks for that, now off to work I go, mind adrift with this scourge!

Bottoms up! lol

@Coloma i suppose I see what you are saying, I am personifying an animal. But I dont see why that is really an issue. We as humans do it all the time. If you can say a goose is loveable and sensitive, why cant i call it an asshole?

“How can something be an asshole when it is simply behaving in the way it was designed to behave for optimum survival of itself and it’s offspring?” Because it was designed to behave in an assholish manner? Sure it survives great because of this, but that doesnt change the facts.

btw id rather encounter a black bear than a flock of geese that isnt happy with me. At least with the black bear I can scare it away..

@anartist Domesticated turkeys are dumb. Wild turkey are some of the most intelligent birds you can find.

Hmmm. It appears that I was mistaken. New York does not allow the butchering of cats or dogs.

@Coloma geese attacked me when I was a small child.

All meat eaters, especially beef eaters, owe a debt of gratitude to Temple Grandin. She discovered while searching to understand her autism, a great empathy for animals [possibly far more than for people] and put her efforts toward designing, oddly enough, humane slaughterhouses for cattle, where they are never mistreated or even frightened along their journey to their fate. She really loves cows and we all die one way or another.

@anartist – she is an amazing human being, it is a shame that so few of her ideas are actually implemented in factory farming which is where almost 100% of supermarket meats are procured.

@rooeytoo At least they are implemented in the majority of American slaughterhouses.

@anartist – if that is true it is wonderful. I just find it difficult to believe. Certainly the slaughterhouses in the town where I grew up in eastern USA did not implement them. But that was a lot of years ago.

Wikipedia article In the latter part of the 20th century, the layout and design of most US slaughterhouses has been significantly influenced by the work of Dr. Temple Grandin.[7] It was her fascination with patterns and flow that first led her to redesign the layout of cattle holding pens.

While Grandin’s primary objective is to help slaughterhouse operators improve efficiency and profit, she suggested that reducing the stress and suffering of animals being led to slaughter may help achieve this aim [8]. In particular she applied an intuitive understanding of animal psychology to design pens and corrals which funnel a herd of animals arriving at a slaughterhouse into a single file ready for slaughter. Her corrals employ long sweeping curves so that each animal is prevented from seeing what lies ahead and just concentrates on the hind quarters of the animal in front of it. This design also attempts to override the animals’ survival instincts and prevent them from reversing direction.

Grandin now claims to have designed over 54% of the slaughterhouses in the United States as well as many other slaughterhouses around the world.

@anartist

Sorry about your goose attack, I am sure they seemed extra big and evil as a small child. lol

Yes, I love what Eckhart Tolle says about being a cow, that he would want to be a cow in India or Switzerland. haha

California cows are really not that happy. lol

@uberbatman

Touche, if I can call geese sensitive and intelligent you can call them assholes! lol

@WestRiverrat

Yes, I am over run with wild turkeys, and, big surprise, they come to eat the goose feed. lol

Every morning there are about 5 in the goose corral hammering away at the corn and chicken feed.

They know my words…as soon as I run out into the garage and yell ” TURKS OUT!” They scatter and fly over the fence. lol

BUT….there are a few that fake me out, casually wander behind the barn all cool and non chalant, as if they are going, yeah…uh huh…they just loiter behind the barn til I leave and then back at the feed pan. haha

EVERY damn bird on this mountain is fortified on Purina egg maker formula, even the songbirds.

I grow some strong birds up here. lol

@syz that was informative, thanks for sharing.

How could you eat two wonderful creatures?

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I just got a chance to look that over. It was interesting, but I would love to see how they are backing up everything they say.

“Birth rates are falling rapidly worldwide as remaining regions of the Third World begin the demographic transition” Not true. I did a whole paper on the demographic transition. Most 3rd world countries are not at the stage where birth rates fall. Some countries have a replacement rate as high as 13 still. This paper was written in 1998, there was a world population of 5,901,054 then. It is now 6,862,000,000. Thats close to 1 billion more people in the world. A BILLION. Kinda changes things a bit dontcha think?