Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
splitter
Trad climber
Hodad, surfing the galactic plane
|
|
|
Aug 23, 2012 - 04:33am PT
|
"I sneak out of bed at 5am to poop on the floor, then get back in bed like NOTHING EVER HAPPENED!!"
Too funny!!
edit: great blog, thanx for sharing it with us!!
|
|
Delhi Dog
climber
Good Question...
|
|
|
Aug 23, 2012 - 04:55am PT
|
Baba, that's hilarious!
thanks!
|
|
Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
|
|
|
Aug 23, 2012 - 09:18am PT
|
Since I came home to kitchen garbage scattered all over the living room - again - I felt much better after laughing my way through the dog shame pages.
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
National Pork Producers Council: Anti-Science & Anti-Animal
by Bruce Friedrich
The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) summed up its anti-scientific and anti-animal views when, in attempting to defend the industry’s confinement of mother pigs in cages so small the animals can’t even turn around, NPPC communications director Dave Warner told the National Journal, “So our animals can’t turn around for the 2.5 years that they are in the stalls producing piglets. I don’t know who asked the sow if she wanted to turn around…”
Still from film Undercover at Smithfield Foods
When your own communications director makes a remark like that, you have an industry in crisis. I’ve contacted Mr. Warner three times asking for any scientific evidence he has that he believes justifies cramming pregnant pigs into crates. He hasn’t replied, because he has no reply; the science is in, and it all points in one direction: Gestation crates are so cruel that pig “farmers” could be locked in jail on felony cruelty charges if they abused dogs or cats so egregiously.
What are gestation crates?
More than 80 percent of the United States’ 5.5 million breeding pigs are crammed into 2 foot by 7 foot crates, unable to engage in many of their most important natural behaviors. They’re never able to turn around or even lie down comfortably—day and night, for their entire lives.
The Scientific Consensus
The scientific consensus (nicely summarized here by the Humane Society of the United States) extensively documents that when pigs are immobilized in crates, they develop severe mental disorders from frustration and boredom, their muscles and bones waste away, and more.
Because the science is so clear, every legitimate animal welfare group on the planet condemns gestation crates, including groups that run meat certification programs, like The Animal Welfare Institute and the ASPCA. And it’s not only animal protection organizations that condemn crates: Nine U.S. states have outlawed gestation crates, and the crates are illegal across Europe.
The Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (which included the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, former Kansas Governor John Carlin, former U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, farmers, ranchers, and veterinarians) spent more than two years reviewing the science. The Commission’s concluded that gestation crates “constitute inhumane treatment” and should be eliminated. Here’s why:
Crates cause physical suffering
Lifelong immobility causes pigs’ muscles and bones to waste away, so that walking becomes excruciating, and even standing up becomes painful. Because the animals are rubbing against their bars and lying in their own excrement all day and night, they suffer painful ammonia burns on their skin, and their lungs become raw from breathing the putrid air. The animals are constantly starving because they are fed about half of what they would normally consume. Due to lack of exercise, they don’t consume enough water. As a result, many sows suffer from urinary tract infections (UTIs). One study estimates that half of sow mortality comes from UTIs. All of these facts are detailed and supported with scientific references in HSUS’s report.
Crates cause psychological suffering
Dr. Jane Goodall explains that “farm animals feel pleasure and sadness, excitement and resentment, depression, fear, and pain. They are far more aware and intelligent than we ever imagined … they are individuals in their own right.” Pigs, specifically, have cognitive and emotional capacities that are beyond those of dogs; in some areas, they outperform even chimpanzees. So of course they suffer mental and emotional anguish when they’re unable to move for almost their entire lives.
In Animals in Translation, meat industry consultant Dr. Temple Grandin (a longtime advisor to the American Meat Institute and USDA) states unequivocally what the science proves—that pigs and other animals have the same core feelings humans do. According to Grandin, they need companionship every bit as much as we do; they love to play, experience joy, and more. Obviously, every one of these natural desires is impossible to experience when confined in a tiny crate. Thus, the animals routinely become mentally unstable and chew so maniacally on the bars in frustration that their mouths bleed (see the video below).
The NPPC’s lame attempt to defend crates
So how do Warner and the NPPC justify crates? Warner told the National Journal: “The only real measure of [pregnant pig] well-being we have is the number of piglets per birth, and that’s at an all-time high.” This is almost laughably anti-science. As Dr. Donald Broom, a science advisor to the British government and professor of animal welfare at Cambridge explains, “Efforts to achieve earlier and faster growth, greater production per individual, efficient feed conversion and partitioning, and increased prolificacy are the causes of some of the worst animal welfare problems.” In other words, there is actually an inverse relationship between animal welfare and productivity in these animal factories.
The fact that the NPPC’s justification for crates is based on fabrication, not science, explains why its communications director is afraid to respond to my calls and emails.
Conclusion: A thought experiment
Would you like to live your entire life—every day and every night—sitting on an airport tarmac, crammed into the middle seat of a grounded airplane? The plane’s power is turned off; it’s unbearably hot in the summer and bitter cold in the winter. It stinks because nobody can get up to go to the bathroom. You’re living your life, and that includes defecation, in one spot.
Just like pigs: 1) you would lose your mind from boredom and frustration; 2) your muscles and bones would waste away from lack of use, making even standing painful; 3) your body would be covered in ammonia blisters from soaking in your own waste; 4) your lungs would burn from breathing the putrid air; and 5) you would probably want to die.
Pigs don’t like it any more than you would.
Future generations will look back with absolute horror at the mercilessness of anyone who used or defended such loathsome treatment of animals.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/09/08-0
|
|
Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
|
|
Thanks Karl. An easy thing to do besides vote if the issue comes up is support the ASPCA in their campaign to improve the lives of farm animals.
|
|
lubbockclimber
Trad climber
lubbock,tx
|
|
|
Sep 17, 2012 - 01:51pm PT
|
This guy is still a total price of sh#t.
|
|
S.Leeper
Social climber
somewhere that doesnt have anything over 90'
|
|
|
Sep 18, 2012 - 12:04am PT
|
|
|
splitter
Trad climber
Hodad, surfing the galactic plane
|
|
|
Sep 18, 2012 - 12:05am PT
|
^^^ dirtbag dog!
edit: yes, thanx Boodawg for filling us in on that outcome!!
|
|
jeff_m
Social climber
700' up
|
|
|
Sep 18, 2012 - 12:31am PT
|
So glad the rescuer gets to keep Missy. I was expecting to read that the as#@&%e that left her was going to keep custody when this thread popped up again.
|
|
Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
|
|
|
Sep 18, 2012 - 12:47am PT
|
Yes, thanks for letting us know the happy outcome.
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
|
Sep 18, 2012 - 01:23am PT
|
Brilliant outcome. Solomonesque
|
|
Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
|
|
|
Sep 18, 2012 - 02:02am PT
|
It is a tough call if taking the dog away is right. It is justice in the sense of the public extracting some revenge on the dude. Being a life-long dog guy myself, I know that that dog loved his master unconditionally, and would give up everything to be back with him. Non-judgmental and loyal to the end, just the way dogs are. Humans could learn something from dogs.
Of course the guy is a major prick, first for bringing the dog up there, then for abandoning him. He does not deserve to be a pet owner, but did the dog just get punished?
|
|
wivanoff
Trad climber
CT
|
|
|
Sep 18, 2012 - 08:07am PT
|
Jon Beck wrote: "Of course the guy is a major prick, first for bringing the dog up there, then for abandoning him. He does not deserve to be a pet owner, but did the dog just get punished?"
I suspect that Missy will adapt just fine and have a great life with her new owner.
|
|
Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
|
|
|
Sep 18, 2012 - 09:24am PT
|
As the owner of four rescued dogs, I can assure you that they are smart enough to figure out who's on their side. Yes they give unconditional love even to the unworthy, but they give their respect to those they know saved them.
|
|
donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
|
|
|
Sep 18, 2012 - 11:13am PT
|
New studies show that dogs thrive at high altitude. One report found that dogs in Leadville, Co. (10,000ft.) had dog years equivalent to 5.7 human years as opposed to 7 human years for their low altitude brethren, a full 18.6% increase in life span. One can only postulate what the benefits are for life at 13,000 ft.
|
|
Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
|
|
|
Sep 18, 2012 - 12:49pm PT
|
One can only postulate what the benefits are for life at 13,000 ft.
I would agree that the altitude alone is not detrimental to the dogs, in this case the trail up to 13k damaged the dogs feet. Humans do it in $300 hiking boots, dogs are barefooted. I have seen more than a few people carry dogs down trails. This dog was probably in good shape but damaged his pads.
having owned only rescued dogs myself I agree that they adapt, but they do go through an adjustment period. You have to watch them closely for a couple of months because they are prone to run off to try find their old masters. That always made me a little sad, but yes, they all became loving and loyal members of the family.
|
|
Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2013 - 09:19pm PT
|
It seems like this was just a slap on the wrist.
Not a good message to the public about abusing animals either.
The main punishment for Misty's owner it seems, was the court of public opinion.
Probation for Man Who Left Injured Dog on Mountain
DENVER January 16, 2013 (AP)
A man who pleaded guilty to animal cruelty after leaving his injured dog on a Colorado mountain has been sentenced to a year of unsupervised probation.
KUSA-TV in Denver reports ( http://on9news.tv/Uq0FHQ ) Anthony Ortolani also was ordered Tuesday to perform 30 hours of community service.
Ortolani, of Westminster, has said he and a climbing companion were hiking Mount Bierstadt in August when bad weather moved in. He says he tried to carry his 112-pound German shepherd mix, Missy, off the mountain when she couldn't walk, but he had to abandon her so he and his climbing companion could get to safety.
Volunteers coordinated a rescue effort for the dog after another hiker spotted her, and she now has a new owner.
———
Information from: KUSA-TV, http://www.9news.com
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/probation-man-left-injured-dog-mountain-18225082
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!