**GASP**

Actually..some chinchilla farmers have been known to eat the critters rather than waste all that meat.

I think its important to discern the difference between Animal Rights and Animal Welfare. Animal Welfare means you believe animals should be treated in a humane way. You provide food and water and you don't put them outside without shelter of some kind. You also don't abuse your animal in any way.
Animal Rights is where they believe animals are on the same level as humans (sometimes above). That animals have the same rights as us.

I am all for animal welfare, PETA is for animal rights. PETA believes that animals are above humans. There VP has said so a few times. She has also said things to the effect of, I don't care if people die so long as animals aren't kept in captivity. PETA also donates money to ALF (animal liberation front) and ELF (earth liberation front) both of which are on the FBI's homeland terrorist watch list. Both groups use fire bomb and scare/harassment tactics get what they want. And lets not forget that while PETA is donating all this money to terrorists they still have their 501c3 non profit status with the IRS.

I don't like PETA and I don't like Animal Right Activists (ARA's), I know too many people who have had bad run ins with ARA's.

Yeah, what Brig said.:beer:

While I do believe in animal welfare, I also believe in animal rights. In other words, I do not believe that humans, by virtue of being human, should be permitted to abuse their stewardship of the earth. Humans, after all, are only animals themselves, and sometimes it's hard to believe that they're more evolved than what they term "lower" animals. I've watched wild animals who are more civilized than some people.

I do believe that animals have emotions, and scientific testing demonstrates that they think and reason; because of that, I believe they have a right to be treated with respect. After all....what gives us the right to use animals as food, really, besides the fact that we can? What gives us the right to hunt animals for sport? That's bloodthirsty. And if an animal attacks a person in self-defense, it's deemed "vicious" and killed. An animal should have the right to protect itself, I think. If the human can't hack it in a fight, then they shouldn't be threatening the animal.

If we'll treat a death-row inmate with enough consideration that we are forbidden to use "cruel and unusual" punishment on him, I don't see why animals should be less worthy of consideration.


But that's just my opinion, and I know that most people don't agree with it. It's not that I put animals above people, although I have to admit I like them better than most people....It's just that I think they should be allowed to have lives too. I don't agree with freeing lab animals, or firebombing places or throwing blood on people. I don't hold with the methods of eco-terrorists...this is just my own opinion, and I support it as I mentioned before: I don't eat meat, I work at an animal shelter, I don't hunt, don't wear leather or fur, etc.

Sidhe

Of course, for every good thing, there is a bad corollary...

A while back, one of my cats disappeared. He is very much an outdoors cat, and during warm weather, it is not unusual for us to not see him for a few days at a time (and, before you ask, he is neutered and has been since I got him at about six months of age, from an animal shelter). We live in a neighborhood that backs up on a big field, and the cats really love to hang there. Keeps 'em off the streets. Anyway, with all of our work and activities comings and goings, no one thought much of not seeing him for an extended period. After two weeks, though, we were all home long enough to compare notes, and realized that *no one* in the family had seen him. Now *that* was unusual, because someone would typically see him at least briefly coming in to eat, or have a quick snooze on the couch.

So, I hopped in the car and drove up to the local animal shelter (the same one where I originally got him). I looked around for a bit, and sure enough, there he was...a little thinner, rather harried-looking, and really happy to see me. So, I tell the attendant, while holding a cat clearly attached to me by dint of his behavior, "This is him...this is my cat. What do I need to do to get him out of here?"

What indeed! He had been picked up by local animal control (!) twelve days earlier. They have a rule at that shelter...if an animal is unclaimed for ten days, they go into the general adoption pool.

The assholes made me buy back my own cat. Not only that, but they made me meet all the requirements for adoption, as though I was adopting any other cat! They made me prove my other animals were vaccinated, they made me fill out about six pages of questions regarding the pet-to-be's potential living conditions, the number of children in the house, etc, etc, and on and on and on.

Now, the last time I checked, animals are PROPERTY, goddamn it...so you tell me...how is it that I was deprived of my property without due process of law? I could have gotten a lawyer and kicked their asses in court, I'm sure (I mean, I have pictures of the cat and his original adoption documents, plus dozens of people who would have testified that he was mine), but that would have cost both me and an otherwise very worthy organization a lot of money, and it was cheaper to just pay for the guy and get him the fuck out of there.

Still, I think this whole animal protection thing was carried just a bit overboard in my case.

Oh, and by the way, I *did*learn a valuable lesson over all of this. The next time I go there for any reason, I am going to lie my ass off and claim I have no more animals. If they look me up in their records, I'll lie some more and tell them that the animal died, or one of my kids took it when they moved out, or whatever wild-assed thing I can think of.

Fool me once....

Was there a collar with an ID on the cat?

From today's Metro...look for the story on the right hand side of page 1 with the headline "PETA on Birds for furs."

Nope...but he's chipped now.

Elspode:

Yeah, all the animals at my shellter are spayed/neutered, vaccinated, wormed, given heartworm medicine, and chipped. Not bad for a $150 adoption fee.

I would have been pretty pissed off, too, if I'd had to buy my own pet back. I didn't know about the ten-day general adoption pool thing. We don't often get people coming into our shelter looking for lost pets--they're usually bringing animals in because they don't want them--but I'll find out what the policy is on that, because now you've got me curious.

But look at it this way: after all that interviewing and all those requirements you had to meet, you know that, had you not decided to go down to the shelter to find your cat, that he would've gotten a good home anyway. I think that, although no-kill shelters have a very high standard, that they do the animals a much better service than the kill shelters.

Kill shelters charge between$25-$65 (here, anyway) to adopt a pet. They don't check the home, they don't know what the people are like, they don't know if the animal will be safe (for instance, we have a pit bull that we've refused several applications for, because the people who want this sweet-natured animal are the "let's fight the pit bulls" type.) The veterinary care at kill shelters is minimal. The animals are often killed after a week--perfectly healthy animals, who may be someone's pet...someone who's used to not seeing the pet for a while because it roams, and doesn't think to go to the shelter until it's too late...

I realize you may be upset at having to buy your pet back, but think of it like this: he was fed, watered, given a safe place to stay, and the money you paid will go to do the same for someone else's lost pet. It was your contribution to animal welfare. That may not make it any easier to swallow, but it does give it an up-side.

Sidhe

Oh, and I do have to say, I think wearing fur IS disgusting. First of all, why would anyone want to wear a dead ANYTHING on their body, and second of all, it's not necessary to raise an animal in order to kill it for its fur...fake fur is just as good. This is something I consider as killing for sport. It's one of those things that is not necessary to our survival, and yet we waste the lives of these animals for their skins...incidentally, the snow leapord is on the endangered species list for just this reason--fur hunting. Bengal tigers are on the list for the same reason. And something most people may not know about the tiger/leopard fur coats: the entire ffur is not used...only a thin strip down the animal's back. The rest is discarded.:mad:

And that brings to mind the baby harp seals...remember them? Now that's a job I could never have....first of all, they're destroying the species because they're killing all the babies (only the babies have the fur), and secondly, how could anyone with any kind of conscience at all swing a nailed club into a baby animal's head over and over again? It's gotta take a hard person to do a job like that....:confused:


Sidhe

Actually, it only takes a very hungry person to do that job.

I don't see it as a big deal. Fur is pretty. Fur is farmed. Yeah, I have issues with hunting an animal to extinction for it's pelt, but make all the mink coats you want.

Then since

(a) the cat had no ID whatsoever,
(b) the cat had been sitting there for twelve days without being claimed, and
(c) the only proof you had that the cat was yours was your saying "This is my cat. See? He's happy to see me,"

exactly how were they supposed to know that you were indeed the cat's legitimate owner, you weren't lying your ass off, and they could feel secure giving custody of a seemingly-abandoned animal to you?

I'm not saying that you were lying, because you weren't. But how were they supposed to know that?

Because you habitually allow your PROPERTY (a living, breathing creature that requires care and attention) to just wander off on its own for days at a time, by your own admission, out in an environment where it could easily be attacked or hit by a car, with no identification to signify that the cat was in fact owned and cared for?

Because when it didn't come back this time, it took two weeks for you to realize that you should go look for it?

Because when you went to the animal shelter, you brought nothing with you that suggested that this was in fact your cat, and not in fact a random stray that they'd brought in, fed and cared for?

But, of course, the shelter attendant who wouldn't send an animal out with any random person who'd claim it is the asshole here, and the proper response is to "lie your ass off" when dealing with him in the future.

Yep, I'm just dripping with sympathy here.

I worked for an SPA for a while. While they did allot to try and find the animals homes they did have to euthinize (sp?) them allot. Sometime adoption was way up and we could send older animals out to be adopted other times anything over 3 years old was euthinized within a few days of getting there (depending on if it was a stray or not). Its a very sad thing to have to deal with. There were times I was cleaning kennels in the morning and when I had gotten done with one side and went to let the dogs into the other, several were gone. And yes it gets to you as their names are right there on the card on the kennel and some of them you like as they are sweet or neat looking. The SPA I worked for was allot better then Animal Control down the street, we had a much higher adoption rate and a much lower kill rate. We also had a long application that asked lots of questions and charged about $60-90 to adopt an animal depending on how old it was.
The main thing that bugged me was all the dumb reasons people would give for why they were giving up there animal. Made me want to reach across the desk and deck a few people. Now that I think of it I really should have done that before I quit.

Seeing as how were killing all these critters anyway, why not make fur coats for the homeless? :D