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Comment by krona | Hacker News Reader

I don't know where you live but in the UK, dogs are (in law) personal property and discounting welfare issues, you can do what you want with them if you're the owner.

Furthermore, farmers can kill your dog (humanly) on his land if it is causing distress to his animals. In law this is a lawful excuse to cause criminal damage. There are all kinds of lawful excuses. For instance, a person (usually a farmer) is free to kill your horse, humanly, if keeping it alive is causing a material financial loss.

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In Germany you'll send to prison if you kill your dog. But killing your chicken, cow oder pig is just fine. That's so weird.

What if you kill the dog for the meat and not just for the heck of it?

> discounting welfare issues

Well, that's the whole point.

I thought you were going to say that in the UK, you can't just chop down a tree on your land - there are often legal barriers preventing the felling of listed trees!

Being listed would seem to imply a tree was specifically selected by a town for historical or aesthetic qualities. They would seem to be on conservation or public land most of the time, no?

It varies by region. In some places any tree with a trunk radius > 4" is listed automatically, for example.

> discounting welfare issues, you can do what you want with them if you're the owner

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "discounting welfare issues". Sure, if you discount the laws that protect dogs, they're not protected, but The Animal Welfare act (2006) does exist, very much does protect dogs from people "doing what you want with them" and is enforced.

Of course, that protection is not offered at all costs. If a dog attacks a person, or invades farmland and attacks an animal, then the priority of that person/farm animal takes precedence over the dog.

In other words, people can do what they want with their dogs. They just need to kill them first. There are lots of ways you can do that, but starvation isn't one of them, because that's a welfare issue. Seems pretty obvious.

What? No. You cannot just kill your dog for any reason. That is illegal, immoral, and inhumane.

Immoral, perhaps. Inhumane, not necessarily. Illegal, no. (Where I live, obviously.)

How is a dog special? Compared to say, a rat or a chicken or a cow?

I guess you're assuming that I'm okay with killing rats, chickens, and cows?

I'm a vegetarian, so dogs are not special to me in that regard. I only mentioned dogs because I was replying to a comment that mentioned dogs specifically.

Yeah, I meant that we kill rodents and pests easily. But are sentimentally attached to dogs and try to rationalize it. I am not attached to a dog, and if I wanted to eat it, I should be allowed to.

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