Elinda wrote:
Dying is not fun. We're talking dogs here though, not people. Call me heartless, but I just can't find the outrage about this. We kill animals all the time. We drown them, boil them, butcher them, gas them, run over them with our cars, step on them, hunt them.
Would it be better if the puppies would have has a nice loving home - sure? But they didn't. The tragedy is that 'we' - a totally 'nother species, decide we like to have dogs around (when it's convenient)as pets. pets. We cuddle them and pretend they're our babies, and we play dress up or fetch with them. We do this for our pleasure - not theirs. We humans are not always the best caretakers of things. So some of these little playthings are born and unwanted and inconvenient and untended and tossed out - disposed of.
...and now we're gonna go all righteous on some teenager who 'disposed' of them as was requested by her guardian because it happened to be caught on video. Meh.
I think you're overextending yourself trying to play devil's advocate here. There are differences between killing an animal as humanely as possible for food, and torturing an animal for pleasure, or because it inconvenienced you (or both, in this case). They're clearly not the same thing.
We certainly do have an issue with people only being concerned about "cute" or "pet" animals: it's hard to find advocates for sharks, for example, while people fawn over dolphins. And we also have issues with a "blissful ignorance" of much of our own meat preparation. But that doesn't mean that everyone has those hangups.
I haven't watched the video, but I can safely say that there are more humane ways to treat the dogs than to chuck them into a river to drown. That's really not much of a stretch. And the pleasure that the kid seems to derive from the act is probably an indication that she chose that method specifically to garner some enjoyment out of killing the dogs, and in such a torturous manner, too. That's not ok.
