Is Your Dog An Ethical Consumer?

[corvus]

Dont roll your eyes at me, Corvy. I didnt roll my eyes at you.

Don't Corvy me, Raz. I didn't Razzy you.

Are my dogs ethical consumers? No - dogs dont have ethics. You're supposed to be a scientist so formulate your question like one

You know what's really annoying? When people don't read an opening post and then decide to argue against something they think I've said with an argument I've already used TO SAY THE SAME THING. I asked five questions in my opening post, one which was rhetorical:

Are the animals that feed our pets somehow not entitled to the kind of life I prefer the animals that feed me have had?

Do you feed your dog on free range or antibiotic free meat? Why/why not? Do they get sustainable fish species? Toys made of recycled materials?

You answered none of them. Instead you read the topic title question and chose to only answer that one, even though I actually said at one point in my opening post that dogs are not capable of making ethical decisions. I used the title I did because I wanted to encapsulate not whether you are an ethical consumer or not, but whether you are an ethical consumer when it comes to dog products. But, you know, that's a long and tedious title. Tongue-in-cheek titles are much more fun. Until someone thinks it's more fun to take it literally. Either you honestly think I don't know when I'm anthropomorphising my dogs and I somehow started a post graduate degree in animal behaviour without passing zoologist kindergarten, or you're just being provocative. Stop it. I've got a chair in the naughty corner with "Razzy" written on it.

[raz]

but whether you are an ethical consumer when it comes to dog products.

So why didnt you just ask - Are you an ethical consumer? Less words in that than your own title so not so long and tedious. Am I an ethical consumer when it comes to my dogs? I'll have an espresso, fill up my car with petrol and drive to woolies to buy food for my dogs that costs more than an African family would spend in a month and the grower probably wont see a cent of that, so probably not. Do my dogs care? About as much as if I bought them an appendix 1 animal to eat.

I dont know why you get into such a tizzy, corvus, but you do it every time you start a thread and someone just wont go with your flow. But you are right about one thing - I thought the title of your thread was so thought provoking I probably skipped the intro.

Scuse me...time for my non Fair Trade coffee while I ponder how many trees died for my morning newspaper

[corvus]

I dont know why you get into such a tizzy, corvus

Because I find it rude when people don't read the opening post and then go off on their own little irrelevant tangents. Yours are not only irrelevant, but uninteresting and kind of insulting. So sue me for getting cross about it.

Are you saying you don't buy ethical products for your dogs because they don't care??

Or are you saying you don't buy ethical products at all because you don't think it makes a shred of difference?

[raz]

Or are you saying you don't buy ethical products at all because you don't think it makes a shred of difference?

Well I was going to answer but seeing as you find my posts irrelevant and uninteresting i think I'll go and play with someone who has a bit of joy in their life and doesnt treat the internetz as a uni classroom. CYA

Edited April 4, 2011 by raz

[mita]

My tibbie girls' needs are pretty simple. Maybe because they're Buddhist Just a joke, I know dogs can't pick their values & ethics system.

But the diet which suits them best is a natural one, using vegetables sourced from not too far away & chicken, fish & yoghurt.

Their bed-clothing is recycled. From St Vinnie's.

They're not into playing with manufactured toys. All the things that make them happy in life, are free. Like walks, company & cuddles. Their slippered hare-feet seem to be leaving a fairly light footprint on this earth.

[raineth]

No, we are pretty non-ethical when it comes to food and products for the dogs.

Although the spotted one that likes teddies, usually gets my daughter's older teddies rather than brand new ones - so that is re-using.

Unfortunatly there is no way I could afford organic/free range meat for the dogs. But they do eat a lot of the parts of the animal that I wouldn't, and that a most people don't eat a lot of. I remember a while ago someone saying that we (people) should be eating more offal etc, because it is wasteful to only be eating certain select cuts. My dogs get liver and hearts, and pig tails etc. so atleast we are following that philosophy of eating more of the animal.

I used to try really hard to buy organic and free range. I still buy free-range eggs and free range whole chooks. But that's about it. Because we already have to take so much other nutritional stuff into consideration (due to type 1 diabetes and coeliac's disease) that its just a bit too exhausting also trying to find those sorts of products in organic and free-range.

[stormie]

I think the chickens Orbit eats are actually human-grade rejects, if that makes sense. ie they were intended for human use but something went 'wrong - over supply, thawed out a bit too much, etc etc, so I don't know, by him eating them, they're not going to waste, so is that sort of ethical? They probably weren't free range, but if a chicken is going to die, it's best it's body goes to some use rather than being thrown away if it's not perfect?

[WreckitWhippet]

I dont know why you get into such a tizzy, corvus

Because I find it rude when people don't read the opening post and then go off on their own little irrelevant tangents. Yours are not only irrelevant, but uninteresting and kind of insulting. So sue me for getting cross about it.

Are you saying you don't buy ethical products for your dogs because they don't care??

Or are you saying you don't buy ethical products at all because you don't think it makes a shred of difference?

Yes and yes for me.