Interesting. He thinks people who love animals are crazy. Yet it seems crazier to me to harbor an intense hatred of all animals and every single person who likes them.
People are entitled to their own opinion, folks, even if you don’t agree. I know people who love their pets like they were children and I know people who look at animals as “just animals” that can be used to a human’s benefit or else put down with a gun in the backyard. Both types of people are sane, in my experience. They just hold different opinions about the role of animals in relation to humans. I also see nothing wrong with trying to discourage a growing five year old from becoming vegetarian when it could be a threat to her health and development if not done properly. I see nothing wrong with shooting a dog that is threatening you or your livestock. I also see nothing wrong with letting my dog sleep on my bed. In other words live and let live. Hmmm. Maybe that’s a poor choice of words.
Indeed, I have nothing against his opinion. But if that’s all he ever contributes to any animal thread, why come in here to hijack it in the first place?
-foxy
Yes, but Bob doesn’t seem to agree with you. He seems to think we are all wrong and crazy and worthy of his fiery hatred for not agreeing with him.
We thought the same thing about 6 cats.
Then they were gone too soon. 
Eleusis: Let me just sing your praises. I think it’s great that you’re taking in this dog, who somehow knew that you and your wife were the right people for her. I’m so glad this thread turned out this way. I will be checking back for pictures! Also, let us know if she is pregnant and what you decide.
And what’s wrong with those opinions?
You have a possibly pregnant, stray dog pissing on your porch. Call animal control whether it’s non-kill shelter or not. No need to be hyper-sensitive about it.
I believe that the lady with the cat problem pondered that option herself.
Besides finding animal rights a totally bizarre notion. I find them dangerous. They want to do away with medical testing and efficient raising of animals for meat. Safe medicine and cheap sources of protein are a good thing for the world (if you care about humans living in the world). They want to do away with things like rodeos, hunting, and fishing. They’re going after me and my culture. Combine that with their intolerance towards other forms of traditional, cultural, and religous animal use by those culturally different than them and their unfortunate success of getting the State to enforce their intolerance. I’m not going to like animal rightists in the least.
Ethical vegetarianism is an direct offshoot of animal rights. It’s not getting a free pass for me.
If you think that your pet has the same moral equivalence as your own child or even other children, then I think that many people, even relatively animal sensitive folks, would find both logical and moral problems with that.
Having an animal put down by animal control for being a nuisance such as a dog with a barking problem in a populated area with close neighbors is a normal thing. Better than a ethylene glycol laced pancake. And a keeping a nuisance barker in the city with neighbors is a rude thing to do. Get rid of it.
When your dog is off its leash and roaming in the countryside, it’s probably going to get shot. Loose dogs do make a nuisance of themselves. And it’s not unusual (nor immoral) for people to deal with nuisances, even pre-emptively. If it’s on someone else’s private property, I don’t feel that you have any remotely valid complaints about someone killing it with gun or even shooing it off with bb gun. I’ve had it happen to myself when I was a kid (a lead pellet lodged in his hip, thankfully shallow enough for me to take out). It was OUR fault because we let our dog roam loose, not the person that shot him.
I’ve never heard of a no-kill Animal Control shelter, have you? All no-kill shelters I know of are operated by private rescue organizations. The OP obviously cared enough for the dog to rule out Animal Control shelters. It was rude of you to suggest that the OP’s compassion is misguided and undeserved.
Anyway, Eleusis, I’m happy for you and the dog. Now where are those pictures you promised?!
The San Francisco SPCA is a no-kill shelter that guarantees a place for any adoptable animal that the San Francisco Department of Animal Care & Control can’t place.
I don’t understand why some people get so upset if I consider my pets part of my family. I’m not forcing anyone else to do so. Why do they care so much who I consider to be a member of my family? 
What’s wrong with them? Not a thing. You are free to have those discussions in any one of the several threads you have been given to debate those specific topics, including a very long GD thread as well as a very long Pit thread. However, this is not your soapbox. I really care very little about your personal beliefs in matters regarding animal rights, etc. As I said before you have had ample time to debate that matter in several different forums. But that doesn’t make it necessary to turn every.single animal thread into one in which you drop by to give your opinions in a place where you know they aren’t going to be exactly, “appreciated” for their intrinsic value in debate, and then sit around for a good amount of time afterwards proclaiming our bias. And in the same breath lump everyone involved in said thread into a group of “militant animal rights activists who desire everyone in the world to be vegetarians and to stop any and all animal testing”. I’ll refer you back to the threads I mentioned before that you have had ample time to debate just those topics, I won’t give them any more time here.
My point is simply this: when you continue to provoke people in animal lover threads and then sit in your corner and point and say “See? See? They’re all crazy, I told you they were” you are just showing your inability to learn from previous experiences.
-foxy
You just seem a bit quick to recommend the “Kill it! Kill it now!” option. That approach is all well and good if a stray is posing a threat to you, your children, your pets, or your livestock, but it’s a little extreme if your neighbor’s shih-tzu is pooping in your azaleas.
Similarly, the “maniacally insane Nazi” characterization works ok if you’re talking about the ALF or some of the people in PETA, but it’s a little extreme when you’re referring to the “Don’t hurt animals unless you have to. Even then, try not to hurt them very much” camp. (i.e., most people)
The Tompkins County SPCA is a no-kill shelter. This does not mean they don’t euthanize sick or dangerous animals, but they will not kill a healthy animal who just hasn’t gotten adopted.
Hurting an animal that isn’t hurting anyone is just wrong. This dog was scared and desperate, but I guarantee that with some love and attention, she will go back to being the nice pet that she was meant to be. There is no reason to destroy such an animal. If Eleusis and his wife weren’t the sweethearts they obviously are, someone else would have adopted her from the shelter, but why jump to that option if there are others?
People who hate pets should not post to pet threads, because they get derailed into squabbling that has nothing to do with the OP and only makes people mad. Why do that? What’s your stake in it? I don’t get it.
Well, harmless, I am glad you were able to find them homes. And I hope that if Eleusis chooses to find homes for the (possible) puppies, that he is as lucky as you were.
I still think it would be best for him to let a shelter of some sort do it, or to spay the bitch if it’s safe (I agree this is the best possible option). I took exception mostly to the trying to sell them as “breed” dogs. I’ve done a lot of rescue, with my mother, and the one time we took in a pregnant bitch we had an agreement with the shelter. We’ll take her, we’ll whelp the puppies, we’ll spay her, we’ll find her a home, and we’ll bring the pups back to you in good health, unless we can find them a good home before they are 8 weeks of age. She had about 10 puppies. We found a home for one. And we weren’t trying to sell them. I don’t know if the puppies found a home through the shelter. All I know is we brought in very healthy, adorable, probably adoptable puppies. Because we couldn’t find them homes.
I doubt we’d have even placed the one if we were trying to sell them AND find good homes.
The OP decided they wanted to keep her. Why do you insist this is a bad or stupid option, if it makes them happy? Or that a person is “hypersensitive” if they have some compassion for a poor animal and take it in? You’ve had dogs as pets, so I assume you don’t hate animals.
You seem to believe that “animal rights” and “caring for animals” are the same thing. I have a reasonable amount of compassion for animals, but I don’t accept many of the animal rights positions listed below.
I know plenty of people who have compassion for animals, or who believe in some form of animal rights, who still believe medical testing on animals is appropriate. This is because they place the life of a human over the life of an animal.
My concern about “efficient raising of animals for meat” is not an animal rights issue. It’s a human health issue. The antibiotics and hormones used in “efficient raising” create a potentially serious human health risks. And the environmental effects of the massive quantities of manure produced by these operations have been staggering in places like Iowa, where I live. It gets into the water supply, it destroys the value of neighboring properties, etc.
Yes, some extreme animal rights people do believe this. But most people who have compassion for animals do not adhere to such extreme views.
I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Strict vegetarians constitute 1% of the U.S. population. American Demographics Q&A. And many strict vegetarians don’t even agree with all the extreme animal rights positions you describe. They’re a tiny minority. I don’t waste my time getting all up in arms about every fringe group I don’t like. My energy is better spent elsewhere. But you seem extremely hateful and angry that these people even exist. Why? At 1% of the population, what are they really going to be able to do to you?
Most of the ethical vegetarians I know don’t care what other people eat. They just decided, “Hey, I don’t have to kill animals for food, so I’m not going to eat meat.” Why should that bother you so much? Why do they automatically get labeled as “crazy”? None of them are strict animal rights activists.
True. But unless their feeling that their pet is equal to a child impedes on your life, why do you care? Most of these people hold down steady jobs and seem “sane” in the ordinary sense.
Are you talking about strays, or dogs that neighbors own? Because I don’t know any animal control that will come and take an animal someone owns just because it’s a barking nuisance. At least not without formal proceedings under the city code, which are often a hassle. In my parents hometown, you actually have to appear at a city council meeting to formally complain!
Furthermore, why wouldn’t you just ask your neighbor to take the dog inside if it can’t keep quiet?
Why not just keep it inside? Most people would prefer to do that rather than just haul off and kill their pet. Why are you so quick to eliminate animals when there are less draconian solutions?
The question is, why do you think it’s crazy to take any form of action except killing the animal (or sending it off to the pound to be killed)? We have nuisance animals on my parents’ property all the time. We trap them and take them to the no-kill shelter. Why is that crazy or dangerous?
One of the charities our family supports is our local no-kill shelter. So when we bring in a stray animal, we make a donation for their medical care and adoption fee, so that the animal can go free to a good home. Why does this make us crazy and/or dangerous? We’ve never had a vicious animal–just cats and dogs who were without a home.
The complaint is not that you don’t have a legal right to shoot the animal. The question is, why are you so angry and so hard-hearted that you think it’s the only solution that a sane person would choose?
Looking for the promised pics. If she is with pups and too far along for the abortion, maybe you could start an adoption thread. Smart doggy, to wander up to your house.
I didn’t mean it as Eleusis saying, “Here’s a gin-u-wine wiener dog; gimme $200”.
I was thinking more along the lines of people reacting, “Looks a bit like a wiener mutt. I’d love a dog, this one’s cute, and sure! I don’t mind paying the $25 for the food, raising, etc.”
Of course cats don’t seem to have the problem of being impregnated by something double to triple their size. :dubious:
Just easier with cats, I guess.
I have no idea how anything got into the title line up there. :smack:
!! was not intentional.
I don’t know. It probably is easier with cats.
If people gave money to help with the costs of raising a healthy puppy, that I suppose I could see. But I sincerely doubt most people will. There are too many pets out there.
Anyway, I do hope that everything turns out well. As it stands, he’s got a new friend, and that’s a great thing.
pictures!!
pictures!!!
pictures!!!
Yep, that’s what I was coming here to post. We need an update!