WoofnHoof

It could be argued that the coyotes don't consider the stress the rabbit is under because they lack the theory of mind and higher order conciousness which is what makes humans feel empathy for species other than their own. If the coyote did have the mental capacity to put itself in the shoes of the rabbit and feel it's pain maybe it would try harder to make the death quicker, maybe it would go veg? Who knows but since humans do have the capacity to feel for other animals and the desire to reduce the suffering we cause be it nature or not it should be explored in all it's forms. Crap- Thinking its stupid to give animals lawyers isnt the same as wanting them to suffer. I think its stupid to give animals lawyers. It's their legal system maybe it works maybe it doesn't, but prosecution lawyers that try cases under animal welfare laws are essentially working as advocates for the animals, the governments work as advocates for the animals when they make these laws even if it is through the will of the people. It all amounts to the same thing from what I can tell it's just semantics.

Lol if you translate that into beeps for morse code you get three short bips, three long bips, three short bips = SOS

I used to work at a pork production facility, don't know about loading practices that's handled by the supplier but on arrival they were penned in small groups (better not to let them fight it damages the meat), water sprays from the ceiling on hot days and stunning involved herding them into a chamber which then filled with CO2, once stunned they were bled out. You say a bullet would be better, would that be a well aimed bullet at a target that doesn't move at the wrong moment? What happens if it's not well aimed and the target moves? Most methods have the potential to be either humane or inhumane depending on the conditions and the handler. Whippets interesting you should say that the pike had a better life in the wild, how do you measure that better life in the wild? The quality of life in the wild is dependent on many factors and is not guarenteed to be better than that of a captive animal.

That's what frustrates me as well the negative associations that have been made as a result of animal rights capers, but I wish people wouldn't jump to the conclusion that just because something has a whacky headline it means it's an animal rights plot to ban fishing. Whacky headlines are pretty much standard fare in the UK press anyway.

I know what you mean it just shocks me when some people - fellow animal lovers no less - comment about how ridiculous it is that a dead fish has a lawyer and don't see that it's about the underlying principle of not just accepting that line fishing is a-ok but making sure we continually re-evaluate our animal welfare standards whether it's making sure companion animals aren't churned out on a production line or ensuring that wild-caught fish aren't treated like inanimate objects. I'd love to see the outcomes of meat chickens and other food animals improved too but until people start facing the reality that they have to pay more for better welfare for their animal products it's always going to be far more difficult to enact change in this area.

But you need to take into account the total time the animal is alive in some cases. A wild caught fish may have a 10 minute fight on the line, but some production animals have a whole lifetime of suffering. Even the trip to the slaughterhouse is longer than 10 minutes, not to mention the catching process. I spend a bit of time thinking about these things too, and a wild fish has a much better life and death than a farmed animal in most cases. Provided suffering is mimimised then I much prefer harvesting from the wild these days to have a better welfare outcome for our meat. I'd love to see kangaroo harvesting increased, much better sense for us than hoof stock. True but there are arguments that the welfare of domestic meat animals overall is better because they are protected from disease, predation etc much better than wild animals are. Still not ideal but it's an argument nonetheless. My point is that at least farm animal management and slaughter has standards to regulate it and one would hope those standards are based on a continual improvement ideal as well as based on what we know about animal pain and stress. I think a lot of welfare issues are a battle of perception battery hens are still in cages but a lot of people don't agree with this (even though many of them still buy cage eggs for the sake of $2) while many agree with hauling a fish on a line, which is different again to a roo being shot. In an ideal world the roo being shot would be happily living as a roo one minute the next minute it's dead, and that is an ideal we can work towards with good hunting practices, with hooking fish the ideal time to death can be much longer so how do we minimise it? That is my point I guess, just getting people to acknowledge that fish deserve no less consideration in their capture and slaughter than any other animal be it captive, domestic or wild-caught and maybe start to think about better ways of catching fish with their welfare in mind. It is our perception that makes changes in animal welfare outcomes possible, if we still percieved cattle to be dumb beasts Temple Grandin wouldn't be getting paid whatever it is she gets paid to comment on cattle handling and design better handling faciilties, she is listened to because she convinced people that cattle aren't baulking because they are stupid they are balking because they see and percieve light, shadows and shapes differently and showed people that this perception needs to be taken into account when designing facilities and handling the animals.

I'm not a vegan but I do have an interest in animal welfare and the fact is many animals which are raised for meat in this country are killed with some (legislated) consideration as to the length of time they suffer until they die and in most cases it's shorter than 10 minutes. In Australia we have minimum standards, our meat animals are generally stunned according to procedures which are based on our scientific understanding of the nature of conciousness and the perception of pain. No system is perfect but at least with many of our meat animals we have procedures of capture, handling and killing designed to minimise the stress experienced by the animal. Fish welfare research is in it's infancy but there are many indicators that many species of fish have similar neural capacities as those of other vertebrate which are protected by animal welfare laws, it would be remiss of us to ignore the evidence for fish sentience just because it makes us uncomfortable. Lhok your comments about plants are totally irrelevant since plants lack the complex neural system which is necessary for the perception of pain and the experience of counciousness (based on our limited understanding of it), the jury is still out on many invertebrates though so while you and others may find it ridiculous the fact is that the more we learn about the neurological capacities of certain species the less justified we can be in not doing the best we can to avoid or minimise suffering for those animals. It's not up to me to decide which animals are deserving of basic animal welfare standards, but I do feel it necessary to point out that we know enough about fish that we should be at least thinking about ways we can make it more humane in our methods of capture and management - rather than just burying our heads in the sand and pretending that fish don't feel or that their pain doesn't matter. Some might say it's unavoidable but is it really? I don't think there has been enough research into that to decide whether it is or not, has anyone compared the stress experienced by a landed fish and compared it to that of a netted fish? This argument isn't about whether or not we shoud ban fishing but to me it's about whether we can make fishing better for the fish. We still kill farm animals but there is an onus on us to do it as humanely as we can and be continually looking for ways to improve our methods and make them more humane if possible.

Riggggghhht... So everyone here is cool with the concept of a fish being hauled around alive by a hook for 10 minutes when we know that fish feel pain like any other animal with a functioning nervous system? So if someone were to haul around a puppy with a hook in it's mouth for 10 minutes that's fine because hey there are 'real tragedies' out there? I find it odd that people cannot see that something like this is often not about the incident itself but the questioning of the status quo, making people really look at their practices in the light of current knowledge, and to really ask themselves if it is absolutely necessary. This fish was hauled around for 10 minutes on a hook, but it's not just about this fish it's about all fish that feel the hook and struggle against it for longer than is absolutely necessary, and how putting a hook through a wild animal and reeling it in would be considered unacceptable for a land mammal or even a whale and yet it's considered ok for these animals. What's the difference exactly? I find that many people here are too quick to dismiss something as 'whacky, unrealistic animal rights activism' when in fact these are legitimate issues that need to be addressed if people actually care about animal welfare since it encompasses all animals not just puppies and kittens - and it's not just about one fish.

Yep locking the gate is the best bet - stops kids escaping too!

I think the OP is looking at offering money? If he's just offering a gift then I agree that the cost of the bill isn't relevant.

True but since RL01 is considering a contribution based on the figure given it's useful to know that it is what they say it is.

OMG $4000??? That's really weird my dogs' op was $5k that included specialist imaging, specialist (major) surgery, 3 days 24hr monitoring as well as a few more days basic hospital care and all meds. I'd be looking at the bill too, by the sounds of the injury that seems pretty excessive even for emergency vets. ETA GM my response is because IME people have been known to exaggerate bills to get sympathy or in this case perhaps reimbursement, I think if RL01 is considering contributing to the bill he should make sure that the cost is correct.

Hi Councillor, I seem to vaguely recall something in the paper a while back regarding the involvement of council in greyhound racing in Ipswich. I would be interested to know whether there are any moves being made by council towards taking a more active role in the regulation of this industry which appears to be fairly prominent in Ipswich and which also contributes to pound statisitcs?

He's too cute!

I wish I could do something for these poor babies There was a dog fighting ring up here a while back a lot of huskies were being stolen and it was rumoured that the thick coated breeds are used for people to set their fighting dogs on for practice as their coat protects them better than short coated breeds.

I can't remember if I did it when my chi was a pup but I probably did, probably not the greatest idea with youngsters but after a while they are pretty good at getting out of the way, I don't know of anyone whose squashed their pup but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

Gorgeous husky and looks like a healthy pup too! Good sound advice from experienced breeders here for you so that's a great start :D I know what you mean about huskies and cats mine is the same, your best bet is to section off rooms of the house make one area 'dog area' and the other area 'cat area' maybe with a buffer area in between to minimise accidental escapes? Depends on the layout of your house and doors etc though. Good luck sounds like mum and bub have landed on their feet

Wow that's a bit of a stretch from questioning the motives of these self-styled 'watchdogs' to being labelled blinkered supporters. I wouldn't lump those three in together anyway they are seperate entities with entirely different characteristics.

I agree with ML I think it's a great solution, anyone who really wants to keep their dogs entire can do so they just have to fork out the extra cash. Council will enforce it because it's great for revenue, has the dual purpose of collecting breeder registration fees and reducing the costs associated with poundies. If people wont fork out $300 for a breeder license they aren't going to fork out however much in vet fees anyway so I really doubt it's going to make much difference there.

Actually it does matter who the CCF are when they are selling themselves as a 'watchdog', the term implies impartiality which the CCF certainly are not.

Thanks for the belly laugh pm ;) That animal communicator appears to have some real unique skills My horses are in a nice paddock with nice grass to eat but I'm sure they'd still find something to whinge about NZVisla it's really abhorrent that someone could say that about your cat

Predator vs prey interactions are rarely neat and pretty, it is the way of nature it's not like the dogs have the understanding of how to 'humanely' kill and eat their prey. Some of the more finely honed killing instincts have been dulled by selective breeding so the act loses some of it's 'efficiency', all the more reason to encourage effective containment but to say dogs deserve to die because they 'ripped open this poor baby lamb and started eating it alive' is like saying that wild lions and wolves deserve to die because they don't stop to check that their prey (often juveniles) is completely dead before they start eating it, or because it wasn't killed with the absolute utmost efficiency. These are animals with perfectly normal instincts just because most pets are adequately contained and never have the opportunity to rip apart someone's baby lamb doesn't mean they lack the capacity. Similarly you couldn't logically blame a dog for biting a kid that had just shoved a pencil into it's eardrum (even though people do), because that behaviour is instinctive and to be expected under the circumstances.

This thread is getting more bizarre each time I read posts like this. I'm confused you mean you don't think the police currently pull people over at random to check for licenses? I've been pulled over before for RBT, broken taillights etc and they often ask to see my license at the same time. If the police currently cruise the highways looking for breaches of the law you think they wouldn't peek in people's yards and check for licenses to own animals (particularly if it meant potential revenue)? It wouldn't inconvenience me or you any more than random RBTs do but it would definetly inconvenience someone doing the wrong thing, as it currently does for people who drive without licenses. ETA the points system would be handy and easy to implement too, ie every time your dog lands in the pound you lose x amount of points with a limit of x amount of times and after that you lose your license and your dog. You could argue that someone who really wants to can go buy another dog but if it's illegal to sell a dog to someone without a license then you would find far less people willing to break that rule - and also restrict puppy sales to only those people who make the effort to pass the test and maintain their license.

I don't recall anyone suggesting an annual license, you don't have to take a driving test every year to know the basics! Every 10 years or so what's so hard about a simple test in animal care? Those of us who know aren't going to be put out that much and at least it provides for some form of compulsory education. Monitoring would be easy enough if the cops see you with an animal or an animal on your property they can ask to see your license same as they do if they see you driving. A test incorporating body condition scores would cover both malnutrition and obesity and while there are people who will always do the wrong thing at least they can't say they didn't know! And it might help the truly ignorant become educated. Personally I would rather put myself out for half an hour to do a basic test if it meant that more people who own animals have to learn and have a certain amount of accountability. The potential revenue from fines would certainly provide the motivation for enforcing compliance, the current system which allows people to avoid large fines on the basis of their ignorance isn't really working is it? We can hope that animal production industries can be self-regulating but I'd rather put farmers out for half an hour than rely on regulation from within.

Thanks mlc really interesting stuff so far.