Starvation and Steel Bats

Maybe its about time I posted something about my take on Animal Rights...

Their happiness is our responsibility.  Period.

I beat my dog very rarely, and only when she deserves it.  Her happiness is paramount to me, as is her security in her role as dog, and her trust in me as master.  Her only job in life is to obey my will, and in return she should feel no pain, nor suffer any discomfort very long, if ever.   She is lucky that my sole requirements consist of her basic training, amiability toward others, and protection on demand, all of which should be given willingly and readily.  I am lucky that she chooses to do all this willingly and readily, and when she chooses not to, my short reprimand is enough to convince her she really should.

That being said, I also should say, I have gone to great lengths to understand my animals' point of view, and how to get them to understand me and mine.  I have never purposely punished my animals for things they did not understand, nor ask of them things they could not give. 

We should always be striving to ask of our animals only things they can give us, and never more.  We should never reprimand our animals for not understanding.

Those of us that cannot teach our animals what we wish of them or cannot find a way, should not have animals.  Likewise, those that cannot provide a healthy, happy environment for animals, should not have them.  This does not mean I think one should never strike an animal; to convey understanding, one must at least attempt the native language.  Horses kick and bite sometimes, dogs bite and bark, these are things we must do as well as nuzzling, petting, patting, rubbing, murmuring...

Now, you and I both know, this is a perfectly nice ideal, but only an ideal and not reality.  Thus biology, thus, striving toward a goal.  we must always move toward perfection, with the concept that its attaining unlikely.  

I take my responsibility very seriously, and I do take a bit of offense when someone would infer that I have anything less than love for my animals.  I am committed to them, I am theirs as much as they are mine.