Easy, it's aggravating enough for many people to just register for the sake of commenting. And no, I have zero idea what I'm talking about, I would never do something like that. ( And yeah, relating to humans can be much harder than logicaly possible... )
Many of these pet-shops get their "stock" from so called "puppy-factories". It's kind of sick what people do for money. Once they start to think about them as simple merchandise it's over. Reducing the "cost" of producing these "merchandise" is kind of a nasty business.
Learning about pet shops made me pretty ill. The awful thing about it is that most of the people I know that buy pets and products from these shops love their pets and have no idea what a dirty industry it is. Live export and commercial farms are hideous as well. Many are ignorant of these conditions and some choose to turn a blind eye.
Rescuing pets and getting pets from a shelter is absolutely awesome. Good on everyone that does. I never have, I like animals but dont want to take care of a pet because Im lazy.
I don't consider myself an animal lover (although some people in my life would disagree) but I do value animals and believe all life should be treated with reverence, respect and honour, even/especially the ones I eat. In my opinion, the mistreatment of animals by humans is indicative of some kind of serious deficits in a culture or psychological disturbances in the individual
I think many tribal cultures have a tradition of acknowledging the animal's spirit when its killed. I love the muslim concept of 'halal' even though I dont think that halal is practiced as it is supposed to be.
I grew up in a Christian family, and we said grace before eating any meal, no matter what food or however small. When I was about 7, my parents took me to a farm to get some fresh meat. I watched a lamb being slaughtered and butchered, and dad made me help him defeather the chicken. On a later occasion he made me kill a chicken to eat. It was disgusting and the smell made me throw up. Its weird to see and feel the warmth and life of a creature and then kill it. Killing a chicken is gross, it keeps moving even after the head is removed but I swear you can feel how the life has left it. When mum cooked the chicken up for dinner that night I couldnt eat it. The second time I could though, after some serious thought and prayer. When we kill an animal to eat we are taking its life and force to nourish ourselves. The animal dies so that we may live and we should atleast acknowledge this.
Im reading a series called the Song of fire and ice at the moment. There's a character in the book called Ned Stark, and he is a very honourable lord. He doesnt belive it is honourable to have a 'beheader' to do his dirty work. He believes that if you pass justice and condemn a man's life, you should be able to look him in the eye and kill him yourself. And if you are unable to do that then the man is not deserving of death. I think that this is a great concept and although this is about human life and justice, I think that it is useful when thinking about animals to eat as well
It is not practical, ecomomical or viable for everyone to kill the animal themselves every time they eat meat. But I think that everyone that eats meat should have to kill atleast one animal so they can understand what it is that they're eating. If they are unable to do it then they should not eat meat.
For the last year I have been seriously evaluating the ethics and health of eating meat at all but I have gone way too far off topic and preachy already so I'll just stop now
