COLUMN: Treat animals like animals

Published: Thursday, February 13, 2003


I eat meat.

I love stripping meat from rib bones with my bare hands as I pay homage to my australopithecine ancestors by boycotting cutlery.

I love sushi, stuffing myself full of salmon sashimi and unagi until I look like a fully inflated blowfish.

And I occasionally love a rubbery seven-cow composite frankfurter stuffed in a pasty white bun and slathered with gelatinous canned chili.

However, despite my love for red meat, I'm not bloodthirsty. I'm not a savage. And I'm not a murderer.

Having owned numerous pets, I fully understand the necessity of being kind, caring, and compassionate towards man's best friends. And for this reason, I am indignant of cruelty towards animals. Conversely, I am also indignant toward cries for the humane treatment of animals.

If the above statement seems paradoxical, read on.

First and foremost, it comes as no surprise that many of history's serial killers first fulfilled their impulse to take life by victimizing animals. By torturing animals, we violate the contract that humanity has made with nature, a contract that said that, by domesticating animals, we would see to it that beasts that have been tamed and rendered defenseless through selective breeding, would be protected for. Thus, maltreatment of animals is a crime against nature.

Moreover, unprecedented cruelty toward animals is not something that should be tolerated on any level, whatsoever. Like child abuse, animal cruelty is nothing more than dominant scum pitilessly tormenting a weaker organism. Life on all levels is precious and measures should be taken to ensure that misery is reduced to a bare minimum for every species.

I was quite pleased when I read that Coloradoan pet owners may be able to sue anyone who tortures or kills the pet of another for up to $100,000. While I am generally appalled by most compensatory lawsuits, people that unwarrantedly poison, smite, or shoot their neighbors' pets for fun should be dealt a harsh blow from jurisprudence.

Does this mean that I think the bereaved deserve $100,000 for "loss of companionship?" No. But sick individuals like dog killers should learn that their actions, a testament to their decadence, will not be tolerated by civilized society. Killing for pure sport, for the sole enjoyment of seeing an animal in anguish, is sub-human.

I was starting to look pretty favorably on Coloradoans until I remembered that Colorado is one of the 14 states where animals can inherit from their owners; pets can be included in wills!

Animal rights are a genuine political concern but, overall, animals are less complex beings than humans. Animals are, for the most part, not as well endowed, intellectually speaking, as humans. Their needs are easier to meet and they don't generally fear what is not imminent. This in no way indicates that animals should be treated as though they don't experience pain. Animals will scream in agony, squirm, bleed and panic and because of this, they should be treated tenderly.

But there are still extremists who say fair treatment is not enough. They want more. Many animal rights activists run around like headless chickens demanding humane treatment for animals. If these activists are using "humane" as a rhetorical device, so be it. If not, as is the case in Colorado and 13 other states, their plea is ridiculous.

To treat animals humanely, which, in essence, means to treat them like humans, is not practical nor is it necessary. It is in no way fair to the majority of the world's impoverished humans (many of whom live in worse conditions than do most pets in the United States) and it is not fair to the animals.

Cats should not be able to inherit fortunes from their deceased owners. Nor should they be arrested for urinating in public.

Dogs should not be allowed to howl all through the night as an exercise in freedom of speech. Nor should they be obligated to pay alimony for impregnating the Doberman next door.

And, despite how much you loved Charlotte's Web, pigs should not be afforded the right to pursue happiness, which would probably consist of eating truffles all day while receiving a massage and watching reruns of The Beverly Hillbillies.

While these examples are facetious, they show that animals should not be held to the same level of responsibility as humans are. History has shown that charging animals with crimes, as was often the case in the Middle Ages, makes about as much sense as taking English lessons from Ozzy Osbourne.

Thus, treating animals humanely is ridiculous, impractical, and downright asinine. It would be a double standard to allow animals to accept the benefits of being human without accepting the ramifications for their actions.

While we may not be morally obligated to value an animal's life so highly that we treat goats like royalty, the least we can do, as humans and as conscientious beings, is make their time on our planet enjoyable within pragmatic bounds. Treating animals humanely is not an option; treating them ethically, and compassionately, is a moral obligation.