Puppy Haters

One of the benefits of moving in with G (actually the main one) is that he gets a lot of magazines. This is especially fortuitous because he did not see fit to get our cable TV or (much much much more importantly) our internet installed until sometime in 2012 so we’re basically living like it’s 1930 (same lack of modern conveniences different economic depression). So when I’m not unpacking scads of boxes and wondering not only why do I own all this crap but also why did I just pay to have someone drive it cross borough I’ve been reading Newsweek cover to cover. This is how I found out that the Amish are puppy murdering bastards. Apparently not content to rule over just pies and surprisingly cheap (yet beautiful!) faux fireplaces the original men in black are also taking over the breeding of man’s best friend. When they’re not shooting them in the head.

For those of you to lazy to read a 3 page article (Everyone) let me sum up. Basically, desperate for money in our cash strapped times (coke just isn’t selling like it used to), the Amish have taken to cross breeding any old dog with a poodle and raking in the big money from celebrities and wannabees who can’t say no to a doodle of any sort. And the Amish were swimming in black top hats made from the finest cotton and super swank barns (seriously, where do Amish put their extra cash? Blinged out Buggies? (Best reality show idea ever.)) until the public found out that the Amish don’t love cute widdle puppies and were letting them live in squalor with no hugs and lots of parasites. I was on board with the article and ready to form an angry mob to march on Pennsylvania right up until this:

Animal-rights advocates say that culturally, the farmers who breed dogs don't see a meaningful distinction between pets and farm animals raised for slaughter. Sometimes they behave accordingly: last summer Elmer Zimmerman, a dairy farmer in Kutztown, Penn., shot and killed 70 sick dogs on his farm, avoiding big vet bills after a health warden ordered him to take the dogs in for treatment.

Wait a minute. Like the Amish I also see little difference between puppies and cattle in that both are animals that should be treated with a certain amount of respect. Don’t get me wrong, I eat cows and I don’t eat dogs (though perhaps if they were super delicious…) but I don’t think this indicates a major difference in how each animal should be treated while alive. Neither animal should be forced to live in filth, neither animal should be starved, each animal should have a right to an honorable death. And (here is where PETA comes out to kick my ass) both are a livestock products which the farmer should have right to kill in a humane way if he so chooses.

News of the shootings led to protests and prayer vigils outside the Zimmerman farm. Gov. Ed Rendell, a pet lover, marshaled that public outrage to push through a tough new law aimed at improving conditions at puppy mills.

I find this freaked out reaction to puppies living in their own filth a bit hard to take seriously if the same people aren’t equally pissed off about pigs (who might be even smarter than dogs, especially dogs with names ending in doodle) living in their own filth (ok, perhaps a bad example, for the sake of this argument let’s pretend that pigs don’t LOVE filth). And I suspect there are tons more destitute cow, chickens and pigs living in awful inhumane feedlots than there are puppies suffering in mills. Cute shouldn’t be a qualifier for humane treatment (if it were all Afgan Hounds would be thrown to the Amish).

Aside: GUYS! There is a PLAY based on AMISH GONE WILD (aka Rumspriga). I will be seeing this ASAP.