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Comment by adrianN | Hacker News Reader

While I agree that we should think twice about eating sentient animals like octopuses, pigs are quite intelligent too (more so than many dogs!) and few people hesitate in front of a hot dog. Unlike the pigs we eat, the octopuses at least had a nice life and weren't cramped into tiny, dirty pens. Furthermore, octopuses have a very low life expectancy, they die after reproducing, and eating them is ecologically more sensible than many other seafood, tuna for example.

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I think the case of dogs is very interesting. Any dog lover will readily admit their dog is intelligent and emotional. Is owning them and keeping them on leashes not therefore slavery?

The domestication of dogs was something that was mutually beneficial at the time. The use of leashes on a walk is for the sake of safety, not because the dog wants to escape.

If you're talking about abused dogs being chained up and not taken care of, you're right. That is unethical.

Dogs all around the world today live more often than not on small cramped apartment demarcations (or kennels), much like a baby's playpen even though--and as opposed to how owners tend to treat cute ones--dogs are not babies forever. They're pretty much kept "on notice" for whenever owners feel like playing with them, at the end of a hard working day. I tend to think that's pretty close to slavery, you could make a case for Stockholm's syndrome at the least, since owners normally end up preventing dogs from interacting with other dogs at will (!) or even castrate (!!) them. You know, smoke a joint, have kids--find some other stress reliever and bonding mate, and as a bonus you get not to feed a reckless breeding industry.

Point well taken - for people who abuse and mistreat their dogs. But I hope you're not tarring everybody with the same brush.

We rescued our three dogs through a wonderful no-kill shelter here in Redwood City, Pets in Need:

http://www.petsinneed.org/

I don't know what industry we were feeding with our modest adoption fees and donations, other than Pets in Need's mission of rescuing dogs from kill shelters.

So here's an example of how badly we abuse our dogs. Meet ThinkPad Dog:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/geary/12356111084/

I guess my bigger point is that if you're someone whose work day involves the dog (a farmer, a policeman, blind people), that's great, "man's best friend" for me is exactly in this sense of the dog thinking of you as peer, not owner, of being side-by-side helping along and being an active dog. If you're gonna keep your dog in close quarters for the limited time you can see him and walk him, I don't think that's to be encouraged--dogs as house pets, that is. Of course, much like adopting abandoned kids, what you do is very noble and lessens the suffering of dogs, but I don't think that leads to being supportive of "pet culture", especially where people buy brand new pups and of races breeded for quality X that end up with all sorts of cruel diseases--that's feeding the industry.

That's an interesting question, and I have two answers for it:

1. My dogs live a much longer, happier, healthier life with me than they would out in the wild. Their lives are orders of magnitude better here.

2. Have you ever shown a dog a leash? :-)

It's safe to say that pet ownership is fucking terrible for dogs.

Over-breeding leads to painful life limiting genetic flaws.

Excess breeding gives a huge population of dogs with no hope of kind ownership, leading to thousands of dogs being killed each day and many others living in pounds.

I am the dog owner you are talking to. So I have to ask: do you think being owned by me is terrible for my dogs?

See, I can't do anything about "pet ownership", whatever that is. I can't do anything about over-breeding. I can't do anything about the thousands of dogs killed or living in pounds.

Oh wait! Yes I can! I rescued three of them. They have happy lives with us and our friends and each other now. A big safe yard with squirrels to chase, good food (not the squirrels!), soft beds (they're all on my bed right now), laps to sit on, baths and teeth brushed, no fleas (usually), and not getting eaten by raccoons or caged and killed in a pound.

Fucking terrible, isn't it?

Yes, it is terrible.

Pet owners help perpetuate a cruel and inhumane industry.

The fact that you own rescue dogs, and are thus aware of the surplus, but can't accept that this cruelty is caused by the industry that you support is just run of the mill cognitive dissonance.

Canis lupus familiaris only exists through millennia of domestication. They literally would not exist if not for "pet ownership."

That's the point.

Without this cruel industry you wouldn't have genetic freaks living shortened often painful lives.

I don't think it is safe to say. I think pet ownership is tremendously good for dogs overall.

Now that opinions are out of the way, I would love to see unbiased information on the percentage of dogs that live under unkind ownership vs kind ownership.

Tens of thousands of dogs out of tens of millions, isn't a persuasive argument. That's like claiming humans should stop having children - in which for 18 years those children essentially belong to the parents as a form of property - all because some percentage of children get abused very terribly or even abandoned.

Pet ownership has created mutant breeds that would be unable to live without human owners.

Pet ownership creates vast numbers of dogs - many many more than can be supported by human owners.

Even the animal loving UK was killing a thousand dogs a day.

This US animal charity says that in the US one dog or cat is killed every eleven seconds.

Pet owners deliberately blind themselves to the vast amounts of cruelty their choice has created.

Edit: here's the link!! http://m.humanesociety.org/issues/pet_overpopulation/

As one of the pet owners you're talking about, am I deliberately blinding myself to the vast amounts of cruelty my choice has created?

The only possible response is WTF?

I saved my dogs from all the fates you describe. And yet you accuse me and other pet rescuers of the most false and outrageous things.

Sir, what gives you that right?

Are these insults and accusations a good way to win people over to your point of view?

Enough for now, my dogs are waiting for their chicken and collard greens. It's such a cruel life here, poor things.

Domestic dogs want to be owned, cared for, and for many breeds, worked hard. This makes them happy. We have bred them this way for thousands of years. Abusing dogs is cruel, keeping them (well) is not.

Yeah, that really should have been discussed in the article...

This article was linked at the end, and I presume the author didn't feel the need to address the same issue, even though it was a big part of the experience at the heart of the article.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/11/09/flesh-of-your-f...

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