Where, Oh Where Did These Little Dogs Go?
It’s funny how these things happen, but yesterday, I had an “atheist vegan” arguing that if you didn’t refuse to eat meat, you couldn’t care for animals, and today, I happened upon two stray dogs on my way home from the store, who I am now caring for and putting back on the road to recovery. I don’t expect anything for doing this and it’s certainly not something rare, I’ve done it many times before. In fact, I haven’t owned a single dog or cat in my life that hasn’t been taken off the streets or out of a shelter and I’ve owned a lot of them. I’ve also run small shelters on my own where I take in and place cats and dogs in adoptive homes. At one point, I had 14 dogs and 21 cats available for adoption.
Now the point of this is not to toot my horn or anything, I do it because I hate seeing what happens to unwanted and abused animals in this country. Far too many people treat them like they’re disposable, as unfortunately it appears the former owners of these two dogs did. It’s clear that these were owned dogs, you can see where they had collars and it’s also plain that they were dumped on a back-road to fend for themselves when the former owners decided they couldn’t or didn’t want to care for them any longer. It’s also clear that they’ve been abused, the terrier had a broken tail that was never properly splinted and therefore will always have a slight twist at the end, both are malnourished and matted, but they’ve been brushed and tomorrow they’ll get a bath to wash away all the dirt. Both have minor eye infections, which are already being treated, and the terrier has a minor gash in his ear that was healing and I’ve further treated. I realize I’ll probably find more damage tomorrow during the bath but it’s nothing I can’t handle. I pulled a tick off of the cocker, but a quick look didn’t reveal any more and since it’s been cold, that’s probably all there are. It can’t be as bad as the akita we had wander into the yard years ago that was completely emaciated from the literally hundreds of ticks we pulled off of him and he’s recovered nicely. I’m hoping these two also get better over time, it’s taken one of them all night to get up and explore a little, the other hasn’t budged from the couch where I put them to sleep. Hopefully over the next day or two, they’ll both lighten up. Both like attention, they like to get pet and brushed, they both tolerate cats and even though they’re not wild about my chihuahua jumping up to sniff their butts, they haven’t shown a sign of violent or aggressive tendencies yet. They just crave love and I want to make sure they get it.
So the question is, how can I possibly care about these dogs, animals that I have no real reason to give a damn about, when I eat meat? Heck, I’ve even eaten dog before, imagine that! As I was pointing out to our vegan friend, caring about animals, as he was trying to do, was a purely emotional act. I have no problem with emotionalism, so long as it is tempered with rationality and apparently his was not. The reason I care for animals isn’t because I’m desperately anthropomorphizing them, it’s because I recognize that we, as humans, are just as much animals as they are. It’s not a matter of us being so much better than the animals and having to assign “sentience” to animals to bring them up to our level, it’s a matter of realizing we’re not all that different from them. I guess that’s one reason I never bought into the whole “humanism” nonsense. I just don’t think humans are all that hot. Certainly we could be, we ought to be, but in reality, we’re nothing to write home about, barring enlightened self-interest which makes humans think that they are great because they’re human.
I’m going to keep eating meat and I’m going to keep caring for animals, as I always have been. It’s not just the cute animals or the fuzzy animals, I do it for just about all animals, at least the ones that don’t try to bite me, scratch me or poison me. If our vegan friends can’t understand why I do it, I’m sorry, but I’ve got far too much to do actually helping animals than explaining it. Maybe sometime we can sit down over a cheeseburger and I’ll give it a better shot.
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