Vicious Animals

There are no words to describe the intensity of my scorn for anyone who has anything to do with pit bull fighting. As one who is owned by two cats and a beloved dog, I fantasize about somehow giving these contemptible subhumans a taste of their own medicine, perhaps placing them, unprotected, in a ring full of the violent killers they created by their brutality to trusting puppies.

Whatever the legal outcome, the Michael Vick case has caused us to consider cruelty to animals. Oh, we were aware, but we chose not to think about it. But frankly, we’re still only pondering one small facet of it. 

Let’s be honest: Is it any less cruel to go tramping through the woods to shoot “game” for sport? Is hunting any more defensible than causing dogs or roosters to kill one another?

And what about recreational fishing? Even those who “toss back” are choosing to have fun ripping apart the mouth of a living, feeling being.

For that matter, do those of us who are meat eaters think about the cows, pigs and chickens that we grow from cute little calves, chicks and piglets, before slaughtering them? To cater to veal lovers, we don’t even wait.

Forget the argument that we require the protein. It’s available from many other foods.

So should I just go out and hug a tree and maybe eat its bark? Perhaps. But before we get too sanctimonious about condemning the scum involved in animal fighting, many of us should probably face the possibility that we too are guilty of cruelty to animals.