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A
New Concept in
in association
with snips
Many
animal rights and animal welfare organizations are being joined by cities, states,
We
use and encourage the use of these terms to emphasize Because of positive approaches such as this, there have been many improvements in laws and policies regarding issues such as cruelty, dogfighting, and spay/neuter. * *
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All
Animals Deserve a Little It's
important to remember that many animals are not Through
Pawsitive Energy and The Spay/Neuter Incentive Project Here at Pawsitive Energy, Our Holistic Approach to Animal Care Includes a Belief That All Animals are Entitled to Lives Free from Cruelty & Neglect * Animals
suffer as much as we do. True humanity Until
we extend our circle of compassion to all living things, * * | ||
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More Thoughts | |
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Very
little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct.
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If
You're Interested in Living a More Humane Life, Here Are Some Tips: | |
| Absolutes ~ provide
adequate exercise, training and housing ~ feed healthy, natural food ~ visit your vet on an annual basis ~ use collar ID plus a tattoo and/or microchip ~ provide animal companionship ~ safely restrain your animal when s/he is riding in a vehicle ~ use animal safe cleansers ~ be cautious with the type of toys you purchase ~ use a quick release collar to eliminate the risk of strangulation ~ use a halter or harness on dogs who pull ~ never offer an animal "free to a good home"- contact a rescue group if you are ever unable to keep your companion animal ~ keep informed on advances in health care |
The
Next Level ~ speak out when you see abuse or cruelty ~ adopt animals from shelters or breed rescue groups ~ if you do buy, seek out responsible breeders - do not buy animals from pet stores or backyard breeders ~ use animal messages on return envelopes, checks and bumper stickers ~ join an animal group who emails action updates ~ volunteer with a shelter or rescue group ~ skip the circus and the rodeo ~ refuse to buy from companies who animal test ~ never use drugs derived from animal sources ~ practice responsible investing ~ purchase animal related products such as specialty license plates (varies by state) and U.S. Postage stamps ~ use credit cards and services that benefit animal causes ~ speak animal friendly language ~ do not wear fur ~ do not wear leather, wool or other animal derived materials ~ eat a vegetarian or, better yet, vegan diet ~ do not hunt Quotes
on Animal Rights
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| From http://www.equinology.com/Info/USA_AnimalLaws.asp New
State Law: A new state law effective October 9, 2007 limits chiropractics and
massage to veterinarians or nonlicensed individuals under the direct supervision
of a vet.
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| Aww,
baby harp seals are cute. Let us all agree right now: Baby harp seals -- those doe-eyed sausagelike bundles of puffy white blubber -- are just phenomenally, face-meltingly cute. So adorable and so helpless and so sweet looking, it's like God took Bambi and sawed off all his legs and put him in a white fluffy parka and crossbred him with a puppy, a cherub and a Marshmallow Peep, and tossed him onto the Arctic ice to pose for Polar Baby Gap. I mean, cute. But baby seals are also, apparently, highly lucrative. Just ask the Canadian government, taking massive heat from the international animal rights community and Pamela Anderson and just about everybody else for allowing a renewed seal hunt this year, giving rights to seal hunters to slaughter upward of 325,000 megacute baby harp seals (among other related species) out of an estimated seal population of about 6 million. Maybe you've seen the nasty scenario: Apparently soulless, stone-hearted men with giant spiked clubs walk straight up to these helpless and staggeringly adorable creatures and smash their soft skulls in one or two massive blows, all for the sake of profit on the seals' fur (expensive leather goods) and a bit of seal oil (rich in omega-3!), despite no real economic necessity. It's just luxury. It is easy to be horrified. It is easy to be disgusted and appalled by this senseless and cruel killing, even as you block out the fact that, in America, we kill what, 2 million unwanted dogs and cats per year? Three million? And don't use their meat or fur for anything except some scary medical experiments and perhaps some sort of illegal chicken feed? But, you know, shhh. Fact is, we in America butcher animals by the billions to feed and clothe our ever-gluttonous population, countless totally not-at-all-cute chickens and pigs and cows, fish and turkeys and rabbits and sheep, all hacked and clubbed and shot and beheaded by the truckload in a thousand different mechanized techniques and no one really blinking an eye except for rabid animal activists and vegetarians and people who secretly miss wearing leather. But then you merely walk up to anyone and mention how we as a species are still brutally beating these adorable white puffball seals with giant spiked clubs, and maybe you show them a photograph and defy anyone but Donald Rumsfeld or Karl Rove to shudder and recoil in abject horror, even as you munch your fresh order of chicken pad Thai. I mean, horrible. It's one of those scenarios that raises a decidedly all-American question: Are we all just incredible hypocrites? Have our lives become so complicated and messy and packed with low-grade, everyday hypocrisy across so many levels -- politics, religion, education, sexual mores, etc. -- that we've reached a point where the very notion of hypocrisy becomes flexible and fluid and just another annoying itch we can't quite scratch? More specifically, is some sort of moral or humane line being crossed with the seals that isn't really crossed with, say, the slaughter of ducks? Is it the primitive, barbaric technique of the seal killings that gets to us? Or the stunning baby seal cuteness? Is it the fact that most harp seals are helpless babies and that we're chemically hardwired to want to protect innocent defenseless infants? Is this the overarching message? Take the cows, but don't slaughter swooning cuteness? Of course, no one except drunken hunters and Dick Cheney wants to see animals suffer. No one, even happy carnivores, wants to see inside a real slaughterhouse. To see the sausage get made, most agree, is to rethink your relationship to meat and the animal kingdom and to be brutally stunned into lifelong vegetarianism if not an absolute rejection of kick-ass leather boots and cool wallets. This, of course, is what the animal rights groups count on. Which is exactly why the Canadian baby seal slaughter is, it must be said, the perfect press op for PETA et al. Next to grotesque Japanese whaling, baby seal slaughter is the ideal gruesome PR spectacle. Naturally, PETA and its ilk oppose all forms of animal use, from Chicken McNuggets to leather gloves to bunny paté, but those issues lack the flash, power and sheer visceral horror of smashing cute baby seals. By trotting out pneumatic super-intellect Pamela Anderson to offer lap dances to Canadian PM Stephen Harper if he'll just reconsider the seal hunt -- they're merely leveraging this intense cuteness/brutality dichotomy to raise awareness of all the others. Easy enough. But then again, not really. Truth is, the seal slaughter does less to increase awareness of all animal cruelty and far more to illuminate the question of just where we draw our lines of allowable consumption. It is modern moral relativism, a question of where the hell you think you reside on the grand karmic spectrum of Who Decides What Lives or Dies. Do you eat all sorts of meat and love leather couches and cool sheepskin boots and think nothing of it? That slippery line is way, way over there, not all that relevant to your life. Eat only organic, free-range meats, humanely treated and killed? The line moves a little closer, the question becomes more immediate. Vegetarian? Closer still. Vegan, it's right under your nose. Monastic mendicant Jainist who believes in harming absolutely no life whatsoever, including insects, worms and even Ashlee Simpson, to the point where you won't blink an eye for fear of killing one of those creepy little microscopic mites that live in your eyelashes? The line dissolves completely. Yes, the seal slaughter is barbaric and stupid. Then again, we could all survive without chicken and veal and leather jackets and steaming delicious organic turkey hot dogs, too. If we are to measure the progress of the human species by how many things we remove from the master list of Things We Kill Because We Can, well, we have progressed nearly not at all. Perhaps it all has to do with trying to have, at the very least, a modicum of conscience, a shred of reverence, a hint of respect for the creatures we consume for meat or oil or pelt. Respect the interconnectedness of all things, even as you consume them. Especially as you consume them. And there's a visceral level of barbarism and cruelty attached to baby seal hunts that, like whaling, serves no justifiable purpose and obliterates any sort of consciousness, compassion or ritual. It is merely slaughter for money. Is this our collective line? Is our abject disgust at the seal hunt a sign of enlightenment and progress? Or is it merely that the damnable creatures are so unbelievably cute that they release gobs of oxytocin in our brains and we want to love and protect them like tiny Dalmatian puppies even as we enjoy our Niman Ranch hamburgers? Which is it, deep morality or visceral cuteness? Can you unpack it all? Do the seals even care? Mark Morford's column appears Wednesdays and Fridays in Datebook and on sfgate.com. E-mail him at mmorford@sfgate.com. Page
E - 1 URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/04/07/DDGKJI42H51.DTL
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