First The Greenies Want Us to Eat Our Dogs… Now the Academics Say It Is Insulting to Call Them Pets

ACADEMICS: CALLING ANIMALS ‘PETS’ IS INSULTING

Last week for Earth Day the Disciples of Global Warming re-cycled their campaign to Eat the Family Pet to reduce our carbon footprint.

Domestic dogs, cats, hamsters or budgerigars [birds] should be rebranded as “companion animals” while owners should be known as “human carers”, they insist.  Even terms such as wildlife are dismissed as insulting to the animals concerned – who should instead be known as “free-living”, the academics including an Oxford professor suggest.

The call comes from the editors of then Journal of Animal Ethics, a new academic publication devoted to the issue. …

In its first editorial, the journal – jointly published by Prof Linzey’s centre and the University of Illinois in the US – condemns the use of terms such as ”critters” and “beasts”.  It argues that “derogatory” language about animals can affect the way that they are treated.

“Despite its prevalence, ‘pets’ is surely a derogatory term both of the animals concerned and their human carers,” the editorial claims.  “Again the word ‘owners’, whilst technically correct in law, harks back to a previous age when animals were regarded as just that: property, machines or things to use without moral constraint.”

It goes on: “We invite authors to use the words ‘free-living’, ‘free-ranging’ or ‘free-roaming’ rather than ‘wild animals’

“For most, ‘wildness’ is synonymous with uncivilized, unrestrained, barbarous existence.

“There is an obvious prejudgment here that should be avoided.”  [h/t WeaselZippers / the Blaze]

Personally I prefer to think of my pets as ‘furkids’ and part of the family to love, not as property.  They add much more to my life than the so-called care-giving I do for them could be counted as a burden.  I don’t mind doing for them as I don’t for any family member and believe they deserve fair treatment and love.  As of insulting them if they are called pets… doubt they’d notice. But as for eating them or euthanizing them for global warming… not a chance!

Perhaps these academics might want to put themselves to work fighting some of the real anti-pet, anti-animal, animal cruelty issues??  What a concept.  Here are a few if they can’t find any:

The Latest Enemies of Iran: Dogs and Their Owners

No Mercy:  Calf Farm Cruelty Exposed

Greenies Gone Wild Again… for Earth Day  -  Back to Americans Doing More, Including Eating Our Dogs

China, Korea and many other nations are still eating dogs and cats:

STOP KILLING DOGS! 2 Million Dogs Killed in Horrible Ways Every Year in South Korea

Olympic Clean-up Chinese Style:  Beijing’s Shocking Cat Death Camps

And how about the fact that we in the United States we are Still Euthanizing 4 Million Dogs Plus Additional Pets in Shelters in America Every Year because of don’t have a good system. We base rules on lobbies or making money and we restrict people in far too many communities to one or two pets.  No one is promoting hoarding, but 3 to 6 pets are the right number for some people, one is too many for others and abuses need to be addressed on an individual bases.  We also allow vets to over-charge for spay and neutering procedures and demonize private breeders and people who choose to let their pet have a litter but too often look the other way when it comes to puppy and kitten mills and the pet stores who buy and sell the the ‘mill’s animals.  Join the “NO KILL Movement” and report all abuse and neglect, against animals and humans.

Related:

UN Document: Mother Earth Has Same Rights as Humans

Protect Innocent Animals; Make Bestiality a Felony

Gov’t to Decide What Pets You Can Own

The Latest Enemies of Iran: Dogs and Their Owners

The Latest Enemies of Iran: Dogs and Their Owners – Fighting Shariah By Azadeh Moaveni

“Iranian officials find themselves in a cultural war with the West and see what they’re offering as an ‘Islamic lifestyle’ failing measurably.” For much of the past decade, the Iranian government has tolerated what it considers a particularly depraved and un-Islamic vice: the keeping of pet dogs. During periodic crackdowns, police have confiscated dogs from their owners right off the street; and state media has lectured Iranians on the diseases spread by canines. The cleric Gholamreza Hassani, from the city of Urmia, has been satirized for his sermons railing against "short-legged" and "holdable" dogs. But as with the policing of many other practices (like imbibing alcoholic drinks) that are deemed impure by the mullahs but perfectly fine to many Iranians, the state has eventually relaxed and let dog lovers be. Those days of tacit acceptance may soon be over, however. Lawmakers in Tehran have recently proposed a bill in parliament that would criminalize dog ownership, formally enshrining its punishment within the country’s Islamic penal code. The bill warns that that in addition to posing public health hazards, the popularity of dog ownership "also poses a cultural problem, a blind imitation of the vulgar culture of the West." The proposed legislation for the first time outlines specific punishments for "the walking and keeping" of "impure and dangerous animals," a definition that could feasibly include cats but for the time being seems targeted at dogs. The law would see the offending animal confiscated, the leveling of a $100-to-$500 fine on the owner, but leaves the fate of confiscated dogs uncertain. "Considering the several thousand dogs [that are kept] in Tehran alone, the problem arises as to what is going to happen to these animals," Hooman Malekpour, a veterinarian in Tehran, said to the BBC’s Persian service. If passed, the law would ultimately energize police and volunteer militias to enforce the ban systematically. In past years, animal-rights activists in Iran have persuasively argued that sporadic campaigns against dog ownership are politically motivated and unlawful, since the prohibition surfaces in neither the country’s civil laws nor its Islamic criminal codes. But if Iran’s laws were silent for decades on the question of dogs, that is because the animals — in the capacity of pet — were as irrelevant to daily life as dinosaurs. Islam, by custom, considers dogs najes, or unclean, and for the past century cultural mores kept dog ownership down to minuscule numbers. In rural areas, dogs have traditionally aided shepherds and farmers, but as Iranians got urbanized in the past century, their dogs did not come along. In cities, aristocrats kept dogs for hunting and French-speaking dowagers kept lap dogs for company, but the vast majority of traditional Iranians, following the advice of the clergy, were leery of dogs and considered them best avoided. That has changed in the past 15 years with the rise of an urban middle class plugged into and eager to mimic Western culture. Satellite television and Western movies opened up a world where happy children frolicked with dogs in parks and affluent families treated them like adorable children. These days, lap dogs rival designer sunglasses as the upper-middle-class Iranian’s accessory of choice. "Global norms and values capture the heart of people all around the world, and Iran is no exception," says Omid Memarian, a prominent Iranian journalist specializing in human rights. "This is very frightening for Iranian officials, who find themselves in a cultural war with the West and see what they’re offering as an ‘Islamic lifestyle’ failing measurably." The widening acceptability of dog ownership, and its popularity among a specific slice of Iran’s population — young, urban, educated and frustrated with the Islamic government — partly explains why dogs are now generating more official hostility. In 2007, two years into the tenure of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, security forces targeted dog owners alongside a crackdown on women’s attire and men’s "Westernized" hairstyles. In the regime’s eyes, owning a dog had become on par with wearing capri pants or sporting a mullet — a rebellious act. The government’s tolerance for this low-level lifestyle dissidence fizzled after Ahmadinejad’s contested electoral victory in 2009, which sparked massive demonstrations and the most serious challenge to Islamic rule since the 1979 revolution. In the aftermath of that upheaval, the state has moved to tighten its control over a wide range of Iranians’ private activities, from establishing NGOs to accessing the Internet, to individual lifestyle decisions, according to Hadi Ghaemi, the director for the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. "No doubt such attempts are motivated by a desire to squash acts of criticism and protests, even if through symbolic individual decisions that simply don’t conform to officially sanctioned lifestyles," Ghaemi says. The criminalizing of dogs, in this context, helps the government address the legal gray areas concerning lifestyle behavior. When authorities found it difficult to police what it termed Westernized hairstyles worn by young men, it solved the problem last year by releasing a poster of specifically banned styles. For many young people, these measures are a firm reminder that the government will brook no disobedience, whether it be chanting antigovernment slogans in the streets or sporting excessively long sideburns. Dog owners in Iran, like much of the population, are mostly preoccupied these days with inflation, joblessness and the parlous state of the country’s economy. But they will soon need to consider whether keeping their shih tzu or poodle is worth the added worry. Their dogs may face the same fate as the hundreds of street dogs that the government regularly sweeps from the streets of Tehran. "Many in Tehran and other big cities find the killing of street dogs offensive and cruel," says Memarian. "It’s like the Iranian people and officials live in two different worlds." Source:  Time Magazine Related:  Dog/Pet Ownership Under Attack… Stand Up Now and Help! Dogs… Pets – Beyond Traditional Islam Man’s Best Friend in Shariah’s Cruel Crosshairs And then there are the Fanatical “Green People”… Greenies Gone Wild Again… for Earth Day  -  Back to Americans Doing More, Including Eating Our Dogs Ditch Your Family Pet to Save the Planet… I think NOT!! “The greatness of a nation, a people, and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated!” …Mahatma Gandhi And When You Look at the Pet and Animal Abuse and Cruelty Around the World… Including in the United States… You Wonder if We Have Made Any Progress at All This is in America:  No Mercy:  Calf Farm Cruelty Exposed Plus We Are Still Euthanizing 4 Million Dogs Plus Additional Pets in Shelters in America Every Year…  Join the No Kill Movement and Become Part of the Solution.  There is a Better Way!

Rosie’s Dog Beach in Belmont Shore (Long Beach) Video

VIDEO: Chris Miller & dogs at Rosie’s Dog Beach | Photos by Justin Rudd!

Rosie’s Dog Beach in Belmont Shore (Long Beach) is the only off-leash area for dogs on the beach is Los Angeles County. 

ROSIE’S DOG BEACH in Long Beach permits off-leash beach access for dogs and their owners in a 3-acre area, daily from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. The area, named after the English Bulldog that inspired its creation, is at 4800 E. Ocean Blvd., basically between Roycroft and Argonne avenues at the water in Belmont Shore, 90803. THE LAW: ONE DOG PER ADULT. CLICK HERE for a Rosie’s Dog Beach map, driving directions, rules, photos and more details.

 

n/t to Haute Dogs and Justin Rudd

Related:

Dangers of Dog Parks and Other Springtime Tips…

Pupcakes!

A while back I had saved recipes for pupcakes (cupcakes for dogs) and tonight I finally did it! Yesterday, I celebrated the two-year anniversary of the date that I brought my dog Ellie home so I thought this would be a good excuse to make the pupcakes. They were super quick and easy too!

Recipe from BakeSpace:

2 ripe bananas
2 cups water
1 egg
1/2 tsp double strength vanilla
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
2 Tbsp honey
1/2 cup peanut butter

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F). Spray cupcakes or mini cupcake pan with olive oil. (I greased them with butter)
2. In a large bowl, mash bananas with a fork. Add all ingredients except peanut butter and mix with a pastry blender until well combined. Add peanut butter and continue stirring until well blended.
*I just put everything into my Kitchenaid mixer and let it do all the work for me.
3. Fill cupcake tin 3/4 full. If using mini muffin tin, bake for 15 minutes. For regular-sized muffins, bake for 25 minutes.

For the frosting, I just mixed together plain yogurt and some peanut butter. There was no exact measurements, but it was probably about 2 cups of frosting and 1/2 cup of peanut butter.

It passed the taste test because Ellie inhaled it!

If you need a quick snack to share with your special friend and don’t have time to bake… regular carrot cake or cheese, in small quantities, or a ginger snap cookie will also work! if you have a dog who tends to get car sick the ginger snap cookies often help with that too!!

h/t to What the Cupcake?

Related:

The New Breed of Baker

Pet Parties – The Latest Craze

For these moms, a dog-day afternoon

Greenies Gone Wild Again… for Earth Day – Back to Americans Doing More, Including Eating Our Dogs!

Desperate Measures for Desperate Times…

By Mark Goldblatt on 4.22.11 @ 6:07AM  – American Spectator

It is a melancholy recognition, with Earth Day upon us again, that the calendar has come full circle since the last, and that the human species has squandered yet another annum in the struggle to save the planet. Our collective thirst for fossil fuels remains unquenched and perhaps unquenchable. Though Americans have tried to lead the way — toting home compartmentalized recycling bins from Bed, Bath and Beyond, switching to paper grocery bags at the Whole Foods Market, and attending sustainability conferences at our leading colleges and universities — hundreds of millions of Indians and Chinese stubbornly and selfishly refuse to abide the grinding but green poverty of their current lives in order to pursue the very material comforts that poison our environment.

Americans, therefore, must do even more, must set an example that the people of the world can point towards and emulate, an example that both underscores the dire condition of Gaia and highlights the moral imperative implied therein. Desperate times call for desperate measures. We must look beyond stop gap solutions such as hybrid cars, energy-efficient light bulbs and low flow toilets.

We must look, in short, to our best friends.

According to a 2006 study by Robert and Brenda Vale, a husband and wife team of research fellows at Victoria University in New Zealand who specialize in sustainable living design, the carbon footprint of an average sized dog (including the land required to feed the farm animals consumed by Spot in his daily diet) is roughly twice as large as the carbon footprint of a Toyota Land Cruiser (including construction, fuel and maintenance). The carbon footprint of the average cat is roughly equal to that of a Volkswagen Golf. The Vales’ estimates have since been confirmed by scientists at the Stockholm Environment Institute in York, England and the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, DC.

The Vales titled their 2006 treatise Time to Eat the Dog? … not available in the U.S. that I’ve been able to find  (See: Ditch Your Dog To Save the Planet), of course, was never intended as a serious policy recommendation. In the first place, most of us have become far too emotionally attached to our pets to consider ingesting them. In the second place, neither dogs nor cats are especially delectable animals, with their flesh, regardless of how it is prepared, whether filleted or on-the-bone, being especially tough and stringy. And in the third place, true environmentalists understand that the ultimate goal is to wean human beings off meat altogether.

Nevertheless, a state-sponsored program of mandatory euthanasia for household pets seems doable. Or at least you’d think so once the American public has been educated on the potential benefits. Consider: There are approximately 75 million domestic dogs in the United States. Their environmental impact thus equals 150 million . . . I almost said “cars” but the correct equivalence is “SUVs.” Dwell on that number for a moment. One hundred and fifty million SUVs. As of 2006, there were only 100 million SUVs on the road in the United States, out of a total of 250 million registered vehicles. Hence, a policy of humane canine eradication would achieve the same green goals as the elimination of every single SUV in America . . . plus another 50 million beyond that total.

That pleasant prospect, remember, doesn’t even include the eco-boon of ridding ourselves of cats. There are roughly 85 million of them in the United States — each one the equivalent, in terms of its environmental damage, of a Golf. Granted, the Golf is a substantially smaller SUV than the Land Cruiser. What’s more, the one-to-one Mr. Whiskers/Golf ratio means that the planetary advantage accrued by a blanket feline extermination will not generate the eye-popping numbers of its canine counterpart. Taken together, however, it seems safe to conclude that euthanizing every household pet in America, especially if hamsters and gerbils and (in particular) bunny rabbits are thrown into the mix, would amount to, and perhaps even surpass, the eco-dream of removing every motorized vehicle from our roads.

Now I am not so naïve as to think that such a policy could be enacted tomorrow. We are a sentimental people when it comes to our four-legged friends. Witness, for example, the general opprobrium to which the professional football player Michael Vick was subjected for the killing of a mere handful of pups — even though, as it turns out, he was on the side of the environmental angels. Surely, Mr. Vick’s transgression lay in his motivation and methodology, not in his sustainability outcomes.

The first step, in other words, may consist not of an act of Congress but of a shift in our own attitudes. Common perception is the key. If you strolled past your neighbor’s driveway and discovered four Land Cruisers parked side by side, what would you think of him? Would you shun him? Would you communicate your disdain to others? Would he soon become a social pariah? Likewise, therefore, if you discover two dogs frolicking and wrestling on his front lawn: You’re not looking at Buddy and Jake. You’re looking at Earth Killer One and Earth Killer Two.

Once attitudes have come around, legislation can follow. The logical place to start will be with the larger canine breeds — Great Danes, Mastiffs, Rottweilers, Saint Bernards and Akitas — and work our way down to Beagles, Dachshunds, Poodles and Yorkies. (Exceptions can be made, of course, for seeing eye dogs.) After the last Chihuahua has been dispatched, we can re-tool the machinery of the state for a final feline solution. The entire process, even with the inevitable holdouts in pantries and attics, should take no more than three years.

The justification for the foregoing proposal, of course, hinges on the answer to one critical question: How committed are we to saving the Earth? Each reader, in the end, must decide that for himself.

DOG FIGHTING GAME RELEASED for Android Phones – CALL TO ACTION

Posted on April 22, 2011 by BSL News

Dog Wars Game Image

By Sloane Quealy-Miner

Android, who is owned by Google, has available in the Android Market a new downloadable game application for your phone called DOG WARS (developed by Kage Games LLC). This is a DOG FIGHTING GAME. The player feeds, waters, trains and FIGHTS the virtual dog for virtual money. It is clear to me that the people at Google/Android /Kage Games think dog fighting is a joke and that perpetuating the myth that pit bulls are inherently aggressive has no repercussions.

Call to Action: Contact the Android market team here and email press@google.com to demand this disgusting application be banned from the Android Market.

REPEATEDLY EMAIL until they take this application off the market.

This kind of stereotyping is responsible for countless deaths of loving, gentle and well adjusted pit bulls across the country. These innocent dogs suffer and die in shelters because it gives false verification to the public that pit bull type dogs are vicious. The people at Google/Android and Kage Games are too daft to realize that aggression is not a breed issue, it is a dog issue. Any dog breed can be “trained” to behave aggressively. This fact has been supported time and again.

The developers state on the game description page “If you have a bug up your b*tt about the game concept, remember: It is just A VIDEO GAME…” It is not just a video game, it is irresponsible and devastating to the animals that are victims of this abuse. The animal abusers who participate in dog fights starve, beat and train the dogs to behave aggressively to both animals and people.

Fighting dogs are kept isolated from other dogs

Fighting dogs spend most of their lives on short, heavy chains, often just out of reach of other dogs.

Fighting dogs may also be given a variety of legal and illegal drugs, including anabolic steroids to enhance muscle mass and encourage aggressiveness. Narcotic drugs may also be used to increase the dogs’ aggression, increase reactivity and mask pain or fear during a fight. Young animals are often trained or tested by allowing them to fight with other dogs in well-controlled “rolls.” Those who show little inclination to fight may be discarded or killed. Some fighters will use stolen pets as “bait dogs,” or sparring partners.

Fighting dogs used by all types of fighters may have their ears cropped and tails docked close to their bodies. This serves two purposes. First, it limits the areas of the body that another dog can grab onto in a fight, and second, it makes it more difficult for other dogs to read the animal’s mood and intentions through the normal body language cues dogs use in aggressive encounters. Fighters usually perform this cropping/docking themselves using crude and inhumane techniques

The effects of dog fighting are devastating, please take a moment to speak up for the victims, thank you

Source: BSL News

Related:

Camden NJ – Officers Open Fire on Crowded Street, Killing Innocent Pit Bull Puppy

Supreme Court Strikes Down Law Banning Dogfight Videos

American Pit Bull Terrier Dogs… In Memory of Ace

Dog Rescued from Fighting Becomes Therapy Dog

Guarding Dogs  -  Documentary in the Making

Hope You All Had a Fun, Safe and Blessed Easter!!

 

Deer Fun… or Pup Folly??

Our pups… Chihuahuas and Chiweenies accompanied by their friend Pepper, as Aussie, had an encounter with deer in the backyard last week, as everyone headed out during the short break in the storm.  Luckily everyone remained calm…

Ask Marion – Photos by the UCLA Shutterbug

To everyone who loves dogs

 

Video:  To everyone who loves dogs

This video is is made by an incredible group.  http://www.dogwork.com/ They deserve the credit for all their hard work and for putting smiles on millions of faces.

SPCALA’s Air Chihuahua

SpcaLA’s next AIR CHIHUAHUA takes off today, April 19th! We are sending 20 lucky Chihuahuas (and other small mixed breeds) to the Humane Society of Broward County in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. We need to raise $1,500 for airfare, medical and carriers for the travelling pups. With your help, they will start spring with a new family!

Donate

Who’s Flying?

Chips, Darcy, Joey, Pinto and Tulip are just five of the 20 scheduled travelers on the Air Chihuahua Florida II flight. They range in age, appearance and temperament, but they have something in common with so many spcaLA pets: they are Chihuahua mixes. Want to learn more about our flyers? Click on their passports. We welcome the chance to find local homes for all of our pets—if you’re interested in adopting, please visit the spcaLA location they currently call home during business hours.

The Chihuahuas are flying to
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Why Air Chihuahua?

Chihuahuas are the number one breed in Los Angeles (over 60,000 registered), and their population keeps growing! Through Air Chihuahua, we match our abundant supply of these dogs with the great demand for them in other areas, like Texas, Denver, Florida and Canada.

Dogs that would have been our guests for months are instead adopted within a matter of hours. We work with other independent, credible animal welfare organizations, like the Humane Society of Broward County, to find them permanent, loving homes.

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We still need your support to keep matching our abundant supply of these pups with the demand for them in other areas.

 

SPCALA l  Air Chihuahua