Pen Farthing - Afghan Animal Rescue

FFY.

 

Years ago we had a dog who was perfect as a PET (pets as therapy) dog so we volunteered. The dog has to pass certain tests - placid, not jumpy, not irritable etc. We would be asked to visit perhaps children with terminal illness, old folks homes etc. The joy that we would witness when animal lovers got to spend time with the dog… its very hard to explain.

I recall an old guy, well into his 90s, blind, had cancer, would just come alive with the dog and start telling stories from his childhood when he had a dog. You had to experience it to understand.

 

When I worked at TfL, someone high up in London Underground was profoundly deaf and had a hearing dog. It was a lovely dog, but utterly useless. Several times the fire alarm went off and it just sat there.

 

Maybe it just didn’t like him?

 

Pretty strong dislike to risk burning yourself to death along with your owner.

 

I am in partial agreement; it depends on the species. Dogs, for example, are highly domesticated at this point and have an extremely tight bond with humans thanks to a symbiotic relationship going back a ridiculous amount of time. There's no putting that genie back in the bottle, even if we decided it was wrong.

Most species are not domesticated, however (even if bred in captivity) and your argument certainly has a lot of merit there. Parrots are a great example; they are not fully domesticated and there's a really strong argument that they shouldn't be kept as pets anymore. And I say that as a parrot owner...I wouldn't get another parrot at this point because I'm no longer comfortable with keeping a non-domesticated species in captivity.

 

And because it regularly squawks “Arakel is an arse”?

 

Certainly doesn't help its cause, no.

 

Aren't 'domestic' cats the same in that respect insofar as they are not fully domesticated?

 

That seems to be the current thinking, yeah: somewhere in between wild and domesticated.

Fair play to the cats. They worked out people are dumb enough to hunt for them and clean up their **** in return for the cat sitting around purring.

Good deal IMO.

 

Cats are ideal as pets because they could eff off any time they wish and frequently do.

Ours is a rescued cat that had lived on the streets for a while. He likes some dry food, but often just finds his own.

He doesn’t go far now though. He’s figured out a warm sofa having his tummy tickled is better than sheltering alone in a shed somewhere.

 

This is an interesting point, and despite always having had animals as both a child and an adult probably something that deep down, I probably have some level of agreement with. I’ve got two dogs, who bring me daily joy. They wake me up bloody early each day, but it gets me up and out. They essentially improve my life, but that is the only reason for their existence.

However…. on the other hand, where do you draw the line. Despite what some people may say, adults at least do not need to consume any animal products to live a healthy life, in fact in many cases they will be significantly more healthy not doing so. That’s also not considering the monumental damage meat consumption does to the planet.

So if we don’t need to eat animals, what really is the difference between eating an animal because we want to, because we enjoy it, and keeping an animal as a pet because we get enjoyment from it?

Even if you make the argument we need to eat meat (we don’t) why then breed so many different types of animal. As an example, you could just stop breeding pigs and do without pork, there are other meats instead, but obviously we have different meats not because people need them, they want them.

Circling back to your original point, this is the main area I have a moral dilemma as pet owner. I’m actually almost completely vegan, I never eat meat and virtually never eat any animal products, yet I feed my dogs a raw meat diet. Dogs and cats at obligate carnivores, if they don’t eat meat and bone they get ill and die, so I have no choice on this for their well being. So I make a choice to not eat meat, but I still contribute towards all the reasons I don’t eat meat by keeping dogs as pets, which I often struggle to justify. I know this was not the basis of your point but it is why I do agree with it to an extent from a personal point of view.

 

Regarding Geronimo the alpaca:

I am a farm animal/equine vet working in the West Country. I have been working here for about ten years. In that time I have done my fair share of TB testing and have probably been responsible for tagging around 1000 TB reactor animals. Only one of these has been an alpaca, however the animal still presented with TB at post mortem. Farmers care just as much about their cows, as I suspect this owner did about her alpaca. Yes, they probably maintain different motives but every year over 30,000 cattle and slaughtered on the basis of suspected TB. Farmers accept it as part of life.

Regarding the actions of Defra and the Police. Having spoken to people in the appropriate departments I was made aware that the owner refused to participate on the day. She was asked to restrain the animal with a halter and leave in a stable or similar pen on the day. Instead she decided to be absent, and leave the animal in the field. In addition to this she invited animal rights activists onto the premises. As they were invited the police were unable to act unless they made aggressive acts towards Defra members of staff or the police.

Having seen the footage it is very unfortunate that the animal was distressed, however the blame here has to be equally split between the owner for refusing to help, the animal rights activists for for inflaming the situation and Defra for failing to ensure that the animals last moments were stress free.

TB is a horrible disease, but in my clinical opinion the correct decision was made but the approach to the end of the animals life was flawed.

 

That is a great post. Unfortunately the Facebook people know better than you.

 

Are you a vet or are you quoting a vet?

 

He's a vet.

 

He was in 'Nam

 

Still am.

 

Yes, work in Somerset but also previously Devon so TB has been a major part of my working career thus far.

 

Sounds like you are justifying the way the animal was treated because of how the owner behaved

That is total hogwash, you should be ashamed of posting something like this

Is it okay to steal something because a house is left unlocked? Is it okay to rape someone because they are drunk and passed out, and anyway the way they were dressed was asking for it?

 

I’m not sure if your being serious, deliberately obtuse or just joking.

Did you actually read the paragraph where I apportion blame equally between the owner, the animal rights activists and Defra?

Quite clearly the owner not helping to restrain the animal has caused additional stress. If the animal was restrained in a stable with a head halter on prior to the arrival of the Defra vets then the police and vets would not have had to chase the animal in from the field.

Animal rights activists (invited to the site legally by the owner) shouting obscenities at the vets and police definitely did not help the situation. As they were invited to the site however the police had no recourse unless they made threatening behaviour.

Defra were also at fault. The attending vets were not appropriately prepared for the situation that they were presented with. However when people are under pressure, sometimes animal welfare suffers as seen here.

As for conclusion regarding rape and burglary I won’t bother responding as I have literally no idea how you can draw any such conclusion or symmetry between the three situations. If you truly believe any of this bullocks in your last paragraph corresponds to anything I have said they I have nothing more to add as I think we exist in very different spectrums.

 

OK finally you gave yourself away, this has to be a windup now, nobody could really be that dumb. You had me for a while.

 

Yes I read the complete bollox you wrote where you are keen to spread blame everywhere but DEFRA

DEFRA were solely to blame for the inhuman handling and transportation of the animal, no one else

Protesters didn't make them use a noose, protesters didn’t make them strangle the animal, protesters didn’t make them transport the animal standing up, neither did the owner, neither did the police

Everything that happened was the choice of those idiotic DEFRA vets

If my analogy went over your head then you’re a stupid ****

 

One of the dumbest posters here calls another poster dumb

I’ve read it all now

 

Blimey.

 

But I did apportion a fair amount of blame to Defra? In both of my posts.

Is this how you tend to try and win arguments by just shouting loud enough that no other point of view can be heard?

I’ve been over it several times but I still don’t understand how rape and burglary relate to this alpaca case at all? Without shouting would you care to explain it?

 

You spread blame around. You think the owner has blame because she didn't put a halter on the animal. You think protestors have blame for protesting.

You absolve DEFRA from all blame despite the fact that they were solely in control of their own actions. They were solely in control of everything that happened to the animal.

A burglar is solely in control of their choice to steal. A rapist is solely in control of their choice to rape.

Its not really difficult to understand is it, except if you choose not to understand.

And no you are quite wrong I am not shouting. My opinion of you through your posts is calmly held.

 

So DEFRA issue another 7 badger culling licenses

We were told in 2011 each would be short sharp cull of 6 weeks duration, and the problem soon fixed

11 years later and 140,000 badgers killed and TB is still the same problem it always was, and the only answer these fools can come up with is lets kill 60,000 more.

And people defend these morons?

 

This will go down well if true:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...did-NOT-Bovine-Tuberculosis-claims-owner.html

 

An utter embarrassment of an organisation

 

Seems like an odd cover up, sending her the results 'n all.

McGill and Dyer deserve a lot of credit. They know very well at this stage there's nothing definitive to report but if they wait until the actual results are known in a few months' time the public's attention will have moved on and it wouldn't make a ripple on a busy news day. Better to shout loudly now, applying the old adage that a lie is halfway around the world before the truth gets its shoes on. Even this time it looks like it took an hour or so for Defra to respond but several online headlines simply quote the campaigners in saying he didn't have it and only later add in the government denial (the Mail being an unusual outlier). All they really need is enough people to believe the alpaca didn't have Tb. The actual results are largely meaningless for their campaign. Sad really.

Maybe it's time to ask why it was ever in this country in the first place. How on earth can it be in an animal's best interest to be shipped literally halfway around the world, to a country it's not native to, to be kept as someone's pet because it looks cute and fluffy?

 

Fuse lit...

 

I thought this when I went to Australia. Turns out some of the C19th British settlers took many native British species with them including Barn Owls.

I mean I’ve overpacked for a long trip, but that’s effing ridiculous.

 

True, also alpacas need companionship, by not having other alpacas around it was quite cruel.