Aurora Bell, just wanted to point this out (emphasis added)
Note the hypocrisy.Quote:
Everyone who wilfully and without lawful excuse, kills or injures dogs, birds or animals that are not cattle and are kept for a lawful purpose, or places poison in such a position that it may easily be consumed by these animals, is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.
Much like most laws written by the states state this (paraphrasing): Any person who knowingly and willfully causes unnecessary pain, suffering, torment or death to an animal...
Then the states exempt hunting, medical experiments, procedures performed by a veterinarian and so forth.
Now don't get me wrong. I hunt. I love to hunt. I love to eat meat. But the state laws need to be consistent. If one can put an arrow or bullet through a deer for the sheer pleasure of doing so because they were given the permissions of the state (license), then it would be entirely permissible to do so to a domestic animal and it not be considered cruel. One cannot be cruel while the other can. It's based upon convenience. Much like the Canada law is based upon convenience, convenience because cattle are killed for the meat and most people eat meat. When one bases their decisions upon convenience it leads to hypocrisy.
All 50 states in the US have outlawed dog fighting like Canada has. Some states have made horse racing illegal, while others allow it to occur. There is no quantifiable difference between horse racing and dog fighting. I can go into this if you want to discuss it.
Then we get to what defines cruelty. Really, it's up to the investigating officer and the state to define cruelty. There is actual case law out of North Carolina where a dog trainer was charged with cruelty because when a dog didn't listen he dragged the dog over to a trough filled with water and held the dog's head underwater. He was found not guilty because he wasn't being intentionally cruel. It was his method of training. This is what I mean by defining cruelty. Causing unnecessary pain or suffering can define cruelty. For the health of the dog it is not necessary to castrate or perform an ovario-hysterectomy unless current health problems exist where the testicles or uterus are the cause of the problems. I.e. testicular cancer or mammary cancer (even though this type of cancer has a high mortality rate). One can say they're having it done to prevent the cancer from happening, but it's still not necessary to the animal. When I was working animal control I would get calls about cruelty. The complaint was "the dog is outside chained to his doghouse all day and nobody ever plays with him." Is that cruelty? For that person it was and to some of you it might be considered cruelty as well. The dog has food, water, shelter, though in most cases it wasn't vaccinated so a warning was issued. But it still doesn't constitute cruelty.
Little story about Rommel. I acquired Rommel in 2006 from an Amish farmer. Saw an add the paper where he was selling the puppies for $25 a piece. Of course there was no phone number only an address. Roll on out there the next day. The farmer had an Australian Heeler and the pups were mixed breed. Told me that the neighbors Rottweiler and Dachshund both got to his dog. The puppies were a mixed looking bunch, most were black and tan while one was all black and Rommel was the only one that looked like a heeler. Turns out he looks like a heeler, has the legs of a heeler, but much shorter, like a dachshund. When we walked into the barn all the puppies took off running so me and the farmer ran around for a couple of minutes collecting them. He said they were 8 weeks but looking at them I was seeing anywhere from 5-6 weeks of age. Well, I bought Rommel, paid the $25 and put him in my truck, on the front seat, whereupon he crawled onto the floor and promptly took a dump. Well, I figured that was a prime time to take a look-see and see how it looked. Pulled over and starting sifting through it. 90% of the feces was pure grain. So on the way back home I stopped at the feed mill and picked up equine pyrantel, ivermectin (for heartworm prevention later on), four doses of vaccines and puppy chow. He's still a relatively skittish dog, but loves people, especially kids (hears them playing outside and whines and cries at the door), gets along with other dogs and destroys every toy except for Kong bones meant for large dogs (takes him a year). He loves to ride in the vehicles, in boats, loves going camping with us because he can run free in the woods. I even take him small game hunting with me but he's absolutely worthless in that endeavor. But he likes the woods and at least he scares up squirrels every now and again. And that's some of ya'll's definition of irresponsible.
