More important, ranchers are generally very good at killing animals humanely (or they send them to slaughterhouses to have it done). I don’t particularly object to dogs dying - I do object when their deaths advance no purpose that isn’t equally well-served by their survival, and when those deaths are needlessly brutal.
Since I introduced the h-word, I’ll second Rumor_Watkins, who took my meaning exactly right. I certainly did not state that hunting dogs is okay, much less practiced, just that the action being called cruel wasn’t in and of itself cruel.
The dog-slaughterer was certainly cruel, but that’s not why. Unnecessarily slow killing is cruel; turning on and hunting an animal with whom you have an individual relationship is cruel (i.e. if the animal knows you as a friend / master / employer); acquiring animals for the short term without humane plans to deal with them after the fact is cruel by means of stupid. But just killing an animal that’s fleeing is not necessarily cruel, unless all hunting is cruel.
Man, I wish the Democrats would adopt this plank in their party platform.
Pets have been known to vote in Chicago 
Eh, the GOP would just react by putting “all dogs must be killed on sight” into their platform, and the net result would be a wash.
I didn’t even check your links (well actually now that I’m responding, I can see that you linked to holocaust-related sites, not surprisingly), but let me tell you that I’m (not recreationnally) outraged that you’re comparing dogs mass slaughters with humans mass slaughters.
Yes, we gave ourselves rights that we didn’t give to animals, and I have zero issue with that ( Note that I’m all for equality, and I’d have no issue either with animals granting themselves rights that they would deny to us, and passing laws accordingly).
True, I’m an unashamed specist. I don’t see any reason to give equal rights to cows, fish, flies and amoebas. I’m reactionnary like that, sorry.
“Sit, Ubu, sit.”
“Good dog.”
<bam>
I don’t.
I’d say some hunting is cruel. And some is not. I don’t think trying to compare this situation to hunting in general gains you anything.
I could do without either one.
No, but in most cases, it’s a pretty good indicator of mental illness.
really? are you a hoarder or something? 
Are you kidding me? That’s not even remotely true. It’s not even close! In most of the world, dogs are pests and need to be killed like we kill rats and cockroaches.
My inclination is to say that it was the owner’s order itself which constituted the real cruelty, by having an unprepared person carry out the slaughter.
I just saw this, and I am thinking “WTF?!” to this new information. According to their spokesperson, the SPCA isn’t responsible for taking in unwanted dogs. Society for the PREVENTION of Cruelty to Animals? Nah, more like only acting on incidents after they become incidents. Prevention, my ass.
And from now on, are people who want to surrender their dogs going to say “Yeah, don’t want the mutt. Take him, or I’ll shoot his face off.”
Ugh.
Putting down healthy domesticated animals out of inconvenience is cruel no matter which way they’re facing, and it is not the same as hunting.
cruelty refers to the method, not the reason.
Think about it for a minute though. There’s no SPCA in Whistler so they would have to go to the nearest one that’s not in Whistler. And is that SPCA going to be prepared to take in one hundred fully grown huskies that each will eat pounds of food a day? Most SPCAs don’t have room in their kennels for what is already there, let alone surplus space for a hundred roaming huskies.
Also, the SPCA here is unfunded. That is to say the only source of funding comes from public donations. They are not a part of the government. They do not get any funding from the government. They live by donation only. So who is going to donate the thousands of dollars in gas money to send a van to Whistler twenty times to pick the dogs up? Who is going to donate the thousands of pounds of food these dogs will consume? Who is going to donate hours and hours and hours of time to care for these dogs?
As for those who will call up and threaten to kill animals if the SPCA won’t take them, it’s a bad idea. If I were to receive such a phone call I would get the caller’s information and immediately forward it to the police. Now there is no Criminal Code section that I know of that relates to animal cruelty. But getting lectured by a cop is still no fun, even if he can’t arrest you on the spot for what you plan to do.
Finally, let’s not forget that despite some popular TV shows, the SPCA is not an animal SWAT team. They do not have squads of jackbooted thugs ready to kick down doors so they can swoop in and rescue animals in distress. The SPCA, being an NGO, really has no special right to tell people what they can and cannot do. Someone calls in a complaint: the animals are going to be harmed! They hear that literally every single day because there’s plenty of rocket scientists out there who think that if they threaten the SPCA just right, the jackboots will come out. But they don’t exist, period. The SPCA had neither the mandate nor the funding to prevent this tragedy.
I am giving you the benefit of the doubt, that you simply “missed” the critical point:
Your comments make it clear that you are completely divorced from any understanding of dogs, so allow me to enlighten you.
Not only are dogs extremely intelligent, they are also very emotionally sophisticated. Dogs possess innate abilities to communicate with us and understand our communication that no other species can match, abilities which align them with us and separate them from all other animals. In fact, whether you have a personal affinity for them or not, it’s almost certain that you, Rumor Watkins, owe your very existence to dogs: Homo sapiens could never have moved beyond basic hunter-gatherer lifestyles without the critical role that dogs played in controlling the meat supply-any shepherd will tell you that managing herds of prey animals is impossible without dogs, even now, and certainly tens of thousands of years ago.
Controlling the meat supply allowed us to stop long enough to control the grain supply which meant plenty of protein and calories and the chance to settle down and focus on developing societies; and that led to science, education, medicine… and eventually you pontificating in front of your PC about how there is no cruelty in this repulsive act of murder.
Dogs have a unique relationship with humanity which elevates them above all other species, and which deserves simple respect, if not actual reverence.
As Sailboat so eloquently put it:
So now imagine smart working sled dogs observing a human being, a human being they know and trust, killing their pack members in a violent, protracted orgy of pain. Imagine these exquisitely sensitive and hyper-aware creatures assaulted by the overwhelming scent of hot blood pouring from their mates, the piercing screams of pain and death, the terrifying sight of their struggles as they perished and then tell me how you can possibly kid yourself into thinking for even one breath that those dogs would have anything less than a perfect understanding of exactly what was happening and thereforesuffer emotionally in a manner virtually identical to the way you would suffer in similar circumstances. Otherwise why would they bother to flee at all?
So you see, Rumor, it is not the “killing while fleeing” that is cruel. It the “Trusted Human violently and painfully and repeatedly murdering their mates and families and friends in front of them and then coming after them to do the same” that is cruel.
Get it?
not for the purpose of criminal animal cruelty laws. and not really to the many societies which view them as dinner meat, i’d doubt.
but not heightened criminality.
yes, i get it. thank you for agreeing with me.
Misdirection. -2
Lame attempt to appear both clever and right through dishonesty -7
Tally: -9
Dogs have a unique relationship with humanity – yes
which elevates them above all other species – opinion, not fact
and which deserves simple respect, if not actual reverence. – opinion, not fact
These two opinions show a remarkably romanticized and whitewashed view of history. I suspect you’re picturing the noble savage, working side-by-side with his faithful hound, and not internalizing the truth that for most of human history, dogs no longer needed by the noble savage would have been killed in much the same way that the dogs in this story were.
And even today, in much of the world, dogs are a source of protein. THAT is the reality, not some mythical, call-of-the-wild reverence.