Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Anyone Ask the Dogs What They Want?

I've been following the whole Vick saga closely for the last few weeks - Ever since he decided to plead guilty and throw himself at the mercy of the court. It has several interesting dynamics. The race issue is one of them, which isn't the subject of this post. Another issue I'll save for a later post is the whole discovering God thing and how quickly convicted celebrity criminals seem to find Him. Does anyone actually believe that?

BTW...Has anyone noticed that God spelled backwards is dog? I'm chuckling at that one.

No, what I really want to comment on is the hypocrisy that our Federal government and several "animal rights" organizations, whose missions are to defend and protect animals, holds. These groups are looking to destroy Vick's dogs as soon as the case is closed.

Like seriously WTF?!

Let me get this straight, Vick broke the law for killing 6 to 8 dogs, for which he is looking at up to 5 years as Bubba's bitch. Meanwhile, the Feds are going to kill the remaining 50 pit bulls. Can someone explain to me the difference between these two acts?

Don't get me wrong, I fully support Vick's prosecution. As an animal lover, his crimes rank #3 in my all-time hanus acts category (#2 and #1 being child molestation and child abuse, respectively). But isn't what Vick did, and what the Feds will do, the same thing?

I know some will say that one was an act of hate, while one will be an act of compassion, but I can't make that connection. If it was a dog near death, suffering through its final days, then yes, I can rationalize that. However, these dogs have a lot of healthy years left in them.

PETA, that wonderful organization that strongly believes LSU shouldn't have a live tiger as a mascot (where he will be cared for and loved unconditionally by thousands of LSU faithful), but thinks euthanizing a dog is perfectly okay, contends that these dogs will never be able to live productively in our society - That these dogs were trained to kill. Well, if they were trained to kill, then they can be trained to love and function in a normal environment. If PETA really believes half the shit they are trying to sell you, then they would take ownership of these animals and do just that - Rehabilitate them.

On the lighter side, grab your chewed up Vick trading cards while supplies last.

4 comments:

Dews said...

AMEN!!!

dead on rlb...

Only thing PETA ever did that made sense (to me anyway) was hosting the "Great American Meat Out" the same day as the Beef lobby hosted their huge BBQ over on the House side of the Hill.

They invited some playmates to wear Lettuce bikini's and hand out tofu dogs and some no-gluten buns for em...

Honestly man, I gave it a good try to take a oomplete bite out of that stuff (after getting plenty of excellent pics of myself and said playmates), but there is no way people actually eat that stuff...

googum said...

Hmm. PETA would probably find this cruel, too, but why not turn the dogs loose somewhere wild? (I suppose you'd have to fix them first, so you don't introduce the pit bull to the ecosystem...) Is it more humane to put them to sleep, or to let them live in the harsh wilderness of, I don't know, Northern Alaska or the jungles of South America?

Jack Gonzo, MD said...

The difference is these pitbulls are no longer acceptable as good pets as they have been bred to be fighters. You can't have people adopting them, people have tried and their children have been attacked. You can't really release them into the wild anywhere as they are not "wild" animals. So you have two options, keep them locked up where they'll likely be treated poorly or do the humane thing and put them down.

Citycat said...

I agree with Shane, and I am an insane animal lover. CNN had a good article detailing the problems these animals face: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/23/dog.fighting/index.html?iref=newssearch/. It would be lovely to "teach" these animals how to love, but you simply cannot do that, and a pit pull bred and trained as a fighter has the ability and inclinaton to kill another innocent animal or child. Also, these are domesticated animals- turning them into the wild is not feasible. The fact that these dogs cannot live normal lives compounds the crime the dogfighters are committing, in my mind.

Also, while I am not a PETA fan, I see a huge difference between protesting the use of a highly endangered, wild species as a mascot (where it will be "loved" in a cage instead of running free and fed instead of being able to hunt, as its nature requires) and condoning the euthanization of a domestic animal that poses a threat to other animals and people.