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How We Treat Pets in America

blog.priceonomics.com

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Re: How We Treat Pets in America

#61

Post by __david__ »

papsosouid wrote: post #57
__david__ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, and many vets recommend horrible things like declawing. Is that really that bad? I'll admit that in the past I've had indoor cats declawed, which frankly really made my life easier. That's a bit selfish, I admit, but I also didn't see any negative aspect to the cat's behavior compared to other (clawed) cats I've had. > Yes, vets do have an unfortunate financial motivation that is often at odds with the best in…

>Is that really that bad? Yes, I certainly consider mutilating animals for convenience to be bad. The process is removing the ends of their fingers. Look at your hand. See the last knuckle? Cut there. >So do human doctors, and yet we trust them or get second opinions when things don't make sense to us. We can also sue them if they recommend elective surgery that causes harm because they want money. This option is not…

Hmmm. Framing it as mutilation makes it hard to debate it rationally.

And as visceral an image is of cutting off the above the top knuckle of my finger, I'm still left a bit unconvinced. That may be true in a purely physiological sense, but really human hands and cat paws have a much different design and function. Our hands are much more manipulatory than cats' paws—they mostly use their paws to hold things steady and then manipulate things with their mouths. Claws don't usually come into play there. For straight walking and running they use their pads, which (as far as I know) don't get removed.

Also, every vet I've encountered has recommended not declawing the back paws (which, from what I understand are the ones that get used when cats are actually defending themselves).

> We can also sue them if they recommend elective surgery that causes harm because they want money.

It's not clear to me that getting dogs and cats fixed is a purely monetary drive for a vet. I have to believe that vets put down a lot of animals. And these are people that choose the career because they like animals (I've yet to meet a vet that doesn't fawn over the dogs and cats I bring in). I'd like to think that the spaying and neutering push comes from not wanting to have to kill so many pets. And by all accounts, the spay-and-neuter-your-pets push has cut down on the number of animals euthanized...

I think to label vets' motives as purely financially driven is a very bleak view.

Re: How We Treat Pets in America

#62

Post by Falling3 »

papsosouid wrote: post #52
Falling3 wrote: post #16

Very happy to see this on HN. I have never understood why people are willing to purchase dogs. Between the conditions of large-scale breeders and the amount of animals waiting in shelters, it's just absurd.

>I have never understood why people are willing to purchase dogs. Because we wanted a shiba. Because we wanted a dog where we knew it had parents without serious genetic defects, health or temperament problems. Because we wanted a puppy so we could be sure it hadn't had a chance to have behavioural problems created through bad training, abuse, etc. >Between the conditions of large-scale breeders What does that have t…

>The amount of animals at shelters does not appear to be an issue here.

The numbers really don't agree with you there. Your anecdotal evidence really doesn't mean much. With 6 to 8 million animals entering shelters each year and 3 to 4 million being euthanized, the amount of animals is most definitely an issue.

http://www.humanesociety.org/animal_community/resources/qa/c...

Re: How We Treat Pets in America

#63

Post by papsosouid »

__david__ wrote: post #61
papsosouid wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is that really that bad? Yes, I certainly consider mutilating animals for convenience to be bad. The process is removing the ends of their fingers. Look at your hand. See the last knuckle? Cut there. >So do human doctors, and yet we trust them or get second opinions when things don't make sense to us. We can also sue them if they recommend elective surgery that causes harm because they want money. This option is not…

Hmmm. Framing it as mutilation makes it hard to debate it rationally. And as visceral an image is of cutting off the above the top knuckle of my finger, I'm still left a bit unconvinced. That may be true in a purely physiological sense, but really human hands and cat paws have a much different design and function. Our hands are much more manipulatory than cats' paws—they mostly use their paws to hold things steady an…

>Framing it as mutilation makes it hard to debate it rationally.

Framing it as anything else is dishonest.

"To disfigure by damaging irreparably"

"To make imperfect by excising or altering parts"

>which, from what I understand are the ones that get used when cats are actually defending themselves

Cats use all 4 limbs, and their mouth to defend themselves.

>I have to believe that vets put down a lot of animals

Not due to overpopulation though.

>And these are people that choose the career because they like animals

You should go to a vet conference sometime, there's a whole lot of vets who have no apparent affection for animals at all.

Re: How We Treat Pets in America

#64

Post by papsosouid »

Falling3 wrote: post #62
papsosouid wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have never understood why people are willing to purchase dogs. Because we wanted a shiba. Because we wanted a dog where we knew it had parents without serious genetic defects, health or temperament problems. Because we wanted a puppy so we could be sure it hadn't had a chance to have behavioural problems created through bad training, abuse, etc. >Between the conditions of large-scale breeders What does that have t…

>The amount of animals at shelters does not appear to be an issue here. The numbers really don't agree with you there. Your anecdotal evidence really doesn't mean much. With 6 to 8 million animals entering shelters each year and 3 to 4 million being euthanized, the amount of animals is most definitely an issue. http://www.humanesociety.org/animal_community/resources/qa/c...

>Your anecdotal evidence really doesn't mean much.

Yes it does. I would not be able to solve the mythical overpopulation problem even if it existed. The question was how can I feel justified in buying a pet. The question is thus entirely about my impact. So my personal circumstances are in fact the only thing that is relevant. The fact that many dogs are killed in the southern US has no impact on me in canada.

Re: How We Treat Pets in America

#65

Post by gizmo686 »

nsns wrote: post #2

Somewhat ironic to find this post two links above the one about lab rats getting tortured for "science". I guess rats are uglier.

In this case, it might extend beyond rats being uglier. There is research supporting the idea that the human/dog relationship is a case of coevalution [1]

[1]http://theacademy.typepad.com/files/coevolution03.pdf

Re: How We Treat Pets in America

#66

Post by Falling3 »

bjt wrote: post #45
Falling3 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I for one find this kind of cognitive dissonance extremely upsetting and a bit perplexing. People are easily able to compartmentalize their feelings about various animals. This leads to neat little groups - food, pet, science experiment. It's very frustrating to me.

If it's purely the compartmentalization that upsets you, then you'd be happier if people were totally cool about tossing the Frisbee around with their dog Spot on Saturday, then cooking him up for Sunday dinner. Is that the case? Anyway, people are a mix of rationality and emotions. We build up emotional attachments to the animals we keep as pets, and get uneasy thinking about using them in meals or experiments.

I'd prefer some consistency. If people think it's horrific to eat a dog, there's no reason they should be perfectly cool eating a pig.

Re: How We Treat Pets in America

#67

Post by rdl »

This is a great priceonomics post (your blog is amazing, second only to the old OKCupid blog!)

I feel kind of bad for wanting a purebred cat now, vs. a shelter cat, but I'll probably do it anyway (the breeder is someone I know, and probably loses $1-2k on each kitten since it's just a hobby for a rich spouse, etc.) Russian Blues seem worth it. I'm considering taking an ex show cat instead of a kitten, though.

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