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Tuesday, August 24, 2010

A Lapdog To Go With Your Laptop



Photo courtesy of D.C.Atty via Flickr

One commenter in an article at Grist about the advantages of lapdogs (which capitalizes on the tried-and-true technique of using cute dog pictures) describes how his pet cats and dogs help to create a biodiversity dead zone around his farm, which is what most dogs and cats were originally bred for--to help us obtain food and protect property (usually from other hominids). Today, one could argue that most of these breeds have become parasitic, serving only to induce endorphin releases for their owners.

If it is cruel to trap wild animals in zoos, then why isn't it equally cruel to trap dogs bred to hunt and herd in houses and yards (private zoos). That is not the environment they were human-evolved to thrive in. Lapdogs, on the other hand, were bred for that environment.

One of my neighbors has two purebred dogs that are so ugly I wish they would train them to walk backwards.

The smell wafting off their backyard on a sunny day is ah, not very pleasant, and they are the norm, not the exception. Where I live the streams contain so much fecal bacteria that the city sometimes has to close beaches for safety. The source is primarily the runoff from backyards like my neighbor's. Pets legally bypass the waste treatment facilities we humans created to protect our environment and health.

Reading the comments below this Grist article I am amazed at the alternative realities expressed. People who "adopt" rescue animals are called angels, placing themselves on pedestals for extending the lifespan of a domesticated animal.

There are now foster home programs for these animals to deal with the volume.

I am bombarded by millions of dollars worth of ads on television by animal welfare organizations, while human beings starve to death. Bottom line; starving people don't give us warm fuzzy feelings.

I was chatting with a homeless women not long ago about her pet dog. She told me that she preferred dogs to people and would rather see a person put down than a dog (after accepting my charity).

George Monbiot has two recent articles where he muses over our innate ability to self-deceive--build realities that suit us:

The idea that you can feed Manhattan with crops grown in a skyscraper is the craziest of my allies' many miracle solutions

For deniers, politics beats the science.

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