Saturday, 5th April 2008
Hunting dogs and slavery
If anyone thought slavery has been abolished, they're in for a surprise. According to Kenneth Cassar (March 1), animal rights dictate that "breeding, selling and buying non-humans for human purposes is treating them as property, and therefore as slaves."
So his advice to anyone owning a pet, or breeding any animal for human consumption, should be to set them free and let them lead a life in liberty.
Mr Cassar does not consider the love for a cherished pet as being acceptable. According to him, anyone owning a pet is a slave owner. Therefore, it follows that anyone owning a pet shop is a slave trader. A vet would qualify as a slave doctor.
Mr Cassar goes on to state that the animal rights view is that "we should stop breeding, selling or buying any more dogs, while we should continue taking care of the ones already in existence". In plain language, dogs should no longer be bred after the ones we have die out.
How's that for championing animal rights! The same argument when applied to all other bred animals would simply mean no more animals. This statement clearly shows the extremism behind his reasoning.
Mr Cassar still insists on asking "how dogs manage to hunt high flying birds without wings or guns". The answer is that, in preference to waiting for their hunting dogs to evolve wings, hunters normally help their dogs by using their guns. In the case of ground game, hunting dogs do not need to evolve wings, so they scent, trail, set, point, and flush the birds, but still need to be helped by the hunters and their guns to be able to get their game. God forbid, the hunters would have to wait for them to evolve wings for that purpose too.
Hopefully this explanation goes some way to satisfy Mr Cassar's "eager(ness) to learn". What hunting dogs do best is hunting. This is their specific purpose in life, and it is right and proper it should be so, otherwise one would not be justified in calling them hunting dogs.
As any other dog lovers, my family and I treat our dogs with great care and affection. The love we have for our animals goes far beyond simply assigning them a purpose. Hunting for me and my dogs is the sharing of a relationship which is tantamount to being symbiotic.
Slavery is total degradation, deprivation and drudgery. How Mr Cassar can think in these terms of an animal that is cared for and loved is beyond reason. His assertion that dog ownership equals dog slavery is a gross non-sequitur. And yet, thriving on making a fool of himself, it seems he will insist on such comparisons.
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Comments
I suggest that you go and live on the moon where no other animal exists for you to kill.
You hope I'm vegetarian? Strange wish from someone who most certainly isn't.
Find out for yourself at www.animalrightsmalta.blogspot.com
You might learn a few things.
I suggest that you go and live on the moon where no other animal exist and therefore no slavery!!!!
By the way I hope you are a vegeterian!
Mr Zammit says that I claim that we should set all "domesticated" animals free. Then he contradicts himself a few lines down by quoting me as saying that "we should…not set all dogs free where they cannot cope on their own".
While Mr Zammit's claim that according to me, anyone owning a pet shop is a slave trader is true, it does not follow that anyone owning a pet is a slave owner, or any vet is a slave doctor. This is clear from my claim that we should care for the "domesticated" animals already in existence. Some people adopt homeless non-human animals for altruistic reasons (ask the animal sanctuaries), and not simply to have them as possessions.
As regards Mr Zammit's "worry" about the extinction of "domesticated" animals, he falls in the same trap as has Mark Mifsud Bonnici (The Times, April 1). Since I am not suggesting that any animal be killed, it follows that by claiming a right of "not-yet-existent" animals to exist, he would be advocating the 'right' of sperm to become animals.
A non-existent "animal" has no "right" neither to exist nor to not exist. The thinking that it would somehow go against rights not to bring animals into existence would bring us to the absurd conclusion that humans have an active duty to have as much offspring as possible (since doing otherwise would deny millions of sperm their opportunity to become human).
Mr Zammit worries about animals bred to be slaughtered for meat, becoming extinct. I would think that such animals would rather prefer not having lived at all, than living a short miserable life that is ended by the knife (not to mention their offspring taken away, being constantly raped to produce offspring for slaughter, etc). But then again, logic is not the speciesist's forte. The only reason why such people are surprised at my views, saying things like "how's that for championing animal rights" only goes to show they have absolutely no idea on the issues. I would suggest a list of books that may be found at www.animalrightsmalta.blogspot.com
Mr Zammit replies to my question regarding how dogs can be expected to hunt high-flying birds by themselves. His answer, much to my satisfaction, is that they can't.
Regarding hunting being the purpose of hunting dogs or else we would not call them so, Mr Zammit should note that pre-abolition slave traders also claimed that to be slaves is black people's purpose in life, and that it is right and proper it should be so, otherwise one would not be justified in calling them slaves.
However, just as calling slaves so does not make it justified to treat them as slaves, similarly, calling dogs hunting dogs does not necessarily make it justified to use them as hunting dogs. The treatment of anyone as property makes that someone a slave.