Dog consumption

[makaya325]

makaya325 - do you think that because 15 million (your figure) dogs are being slaughtered for food a year that means dogs may become endangered or that people in say the USA will not be able to have a dog as a pet?

Yes, That is what I believe, and worry about

 

[Cleon]

Yes, That is what I believe, and worry about

Then you're wrong, and you have ****-up priorities.

Coyotes, at least where I live, are more of a danger to family pets than people in Asia who are having dog for dinner.

 

[GreyICE]

But Flies are not Mammals, and Reproduce much more quickly

That's really not the point.

The point is that populations are depleted not when the death rate becomes high, but when the death rate reaches a certain percent of the birth rate. For wild animals, FYI, 70% death rate per season is quite acceptable, and this is in deer (large mammals).

 

[ProbeX]

Admittedly, I didn't read the entire thread yet, so forgive me if this is repeated info:

In China, some follow a tradition of torturing dogs and cats before killing them because it's believed meat that is adrenaline-laden is more of a delicacy. Evidence is all over the google, or one youtube search away. The cats are dipped, alive, in boiling water, then thrown on the ground and skinned (still alive). Dogs often sustain purposeful electric shocks too, in China.

Meat is meat as far as I'm concerned. What bothers me is the unnecessary treatment of any type of animal, by any country.

 

[BTMO]

2. They display emotions that no Cow or Pig can show

You've never been near a farm, or had anything to do with domestic livestock, have you?

 

[BTMO]

So, basically, it's different strokes for different cultures? Look, I believe violence is not the answer, but somebody needs to do something about this.

Have you considered holding your breath until you turn blue?

 

[Learning Phase]

Have you considered holding your breath until you turn blue?

Now I have to clean the monitor. Shouldn't read these threads while drinking soda.

 

[BTMO]

Now I have to clean the monitor. Shouldn't read these threads while drinking soda.

Firstly, I apologise (ok, no I don't - that was the effect I was going for!) and secondly, if it went into the keyboard, clean it out quickly.

I spilled some coke into a keyboard once, and thought it would be ok.

Turns out the acid in the coke does weird things to the little bits of copper under the keys...

 

[Ryokan]

And that, my friends, is appeal to emotion.

 

[GreNME]

Dogs were originally domesticated for meat:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/science/08dogs.html

Um, no. The article in mention doesn't even state that in definite terms, and that point of view is not very well supported. Based on what we actually know, there is every bit as much evidence that humans began selectively breeding wolves for their juvenile characteristics, especially affinity to humans, very early on during our hunter-gatherer period. Also, considering the lower ratios of meat compared to the larger game available, it doesn't make sense that humans would have chosen dogs over bigger game in the regions of the earliest human development. Now, there's every bit of evidence that as mankind spread out, particularly as groups of humans moved toward Eastern Asia, that availability of game was lower-- the development of consuming dogs would not only make sense, but the practice had to start somewhere, likely in the region that would later become historic Mongolia. The NYT article doesn't even really dispute this likely description of when and where the practice began.

To makaya325:

I am aware that, yes, different cultures around the world have their own rituals/traditions/etc, but there should be a limit when talking about humans consuming Dogs.

Why should there be a limit? Believe me, as much as I love my dogs and as much as I advocate animal welfare, I also don't see how the practice of eating dogs is any different than our practice of eating cows or chickens or pigs, at least in principle. While I prefer that the animals that are eaten are kept under more humane conditions, I don't see a good argument to demand eating habits being the same as my own as a requisite. The use of domestic animals for food may be the same across cultures and regions of the world, but the types of animals differ. So unless you're instead arguing that eating all types of animals is wrong (which I would again disagree with), then you're making a hypocritical argument.

 

[Earthborn]

What purpose do cows serve as pets?

Producing milk, pulling ploughs and carts, modelling for artists... And I'm sure if you teach them, they can do tricks as well.

It would be completely inefficient and way too expensive. Pointless. How much meat do we import, versus raise here? Very little.

I have heard of the Chinese importing some Saint Bernards from Switzerland. Now there's a decent slab of meat!

The only entirely practical reason I can think of to not eat dogs is that of energy efficiency. The higher up the food pyramid an animal is, the fewer of them can be fed, as the energy contained in meat is only a fraction of what the animal that produced the meat has consumed. Meat eating is already a fairly wasteful way of feeding humanity, eating the meat of meat eaters makes it worse.

 

[makaya325]

Meat eating is already a fairly wasteful way of feeding humanity, eating the meat of meat eaters makes it worse

What about eating the Meat of Non-meat eaters, aka Herbivores

 

[BTMO]

Yes, That is what I believe, and worry about

That doesn't make a lot of sense, unless you are a bit of a conspiracy believer. The only way that could happen is if government run dog collection units were roaming the streets (no doubt heavily armed and in black overalls, combat helmets and gasmasks) collecting dogs for international shipping and shooting anyone who gets in their way.

How likely do you *really* think that is?

Oh, and in places where they eat dogs, they find that they can make as many as they need for home consumption by simply leaving the dogs alone with a little sultry music and not spraying them with firehoses when they get it on...

Dogs, despite not having opposable thumbs, are actually quite adapt at making puppies.

And puppies are so cute... and tasty.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

I am amazed on the above. How in the hell can American citizens tolerate this kind of animal slaughtering?

For the same reason Indians tolerate American cow slaughtering.
For the same reason Westerners tolerate Swastikas on Buddhist temples in Taiwan.
For the same reason Americans and Englishmen tolerate Norwegians' consumption of reindeer meat.

Because it's none of your damned business.

ETA:

Meat is meat as far as I'm concerned. What bothers me is the unnecessary treatment of any type of animal, by any country.

Thread won.

 

[GreNME]

makaya325, do you realize that the population of India is one sixth the population of the entire planet?

 

[Ryokan]

For the same reason Americans and Englishmen tolerate Norwegians' consumption of reindeer meat.

How about Norwegian consumption of whale meat?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Ooohhh... look at the cute baby cows.

 

[mikeyx]

Who owns Cows as Pets?! Really, I mean come on! Dogs are likely the most common pet a human can have, and nobody is doing anything to prevent slaughtering of them?

I heard my neighbor's lap bologna (rat terrier) yapping non stop today, different strokes, dude.

 

[quadraginta]

Re: pets vs. food animals.

I'm a bit surprised no one has addressed this from what used to be a very common perspective. Anyone who grew up on a working family farm learned from a very early age that some of the animals were going to end up on the dinner table. Children being children some of these animals would acquire the status of pets in their minds. Learning that this didn't keep them from the stew pot was something of a rite of passage, not dissimilar to learning that Santa Claus isn't real.

Later on they would be given the responsibility of raising their own livestock, a custom codified in such groups as 4H, and celebrated in innumerable county and state fairs. Be assured that these animals were every bit as much beloved 'pets' as any of the family dogs or cats, and no less likely to end up as a meal somewhere for all that, a fate the children were now well aware of. Only a cultural tradition which may largely be peculiar to western Europe kept dogs from falling into the same status.

Some sources attribute the American expression "Putting on the dog.", meaning 'to be showy or ostentatious', to a Native American custom in certain tribes of butchering a dog for dinner to honor an important visitor.

Agriculture provided most of their diet: corn, beans, squash, and tobacco, and the women were considered the owners of their fields. One important difference between the Fox and Sauk and neighboring tribes was they usually maintained large villages during the winter. Otherwise their housing was typical for the region. Large communal buffalo hunts, especially after they acquired horses in the 1760s, were conducted in the fall and provided much of their meat during winter, but like other Great Lakes Algonquin, when the Fox or Sauk wanted to hold a real feast for an honored guest, the main course was dog meat from which the expression "putting on the dog" has come.

These Indians didn't keep dogs primarily for food, they were domesticated partners with the same responsibilities that we would expect, but as has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread ... meat is meat.



Times change. Not much more than a century ago 90% of the families in this country were either on or very familiar with a small family farm. Today 90% have probably never been to one, or at best have visited with much the same experience as going to a museum. 'Pet' has developed a meaning which is perhaps radically more exclusive than it was in the youth of many of our grandparents.

 

[lionking]

Funny thing is I recall many members getting really hot under the collar in threads about Japanese hunting whales for food. Surely that is nobody else's business.