It's still the potatoes that haunt my ethical thoughts, but lets begin with faster moving, more doe-eyed living things that some people still eat, dogs.

I have to kill my dog.  I killed my most beloved dog.  I don't care as much about this dog.  It isn't that this dog is bad, but that this dog is one we rescued and that had never properly socialized.  So this dog was never the companion that my dog was.

We killed him when I could no longer carry him outside and his incontinence made him shake in efforts to hold it, he suffered emotionally and I could see it.  I wasn't going to put him through that any longer.  He had had dental surgery a year before to remove a painful fang.  Anything he ever needed, even when we had no real means to provide it, we got it for him.  As he had done for me.

He had come to us.  He showed up on my doorstep during a very bad year, so damaged that I took him to the vet to have him put down.  He was eventually a glossy coated 75 pound Black Labrador.  He had webbed toes and his paws smelled like lightly stale popcorn.  He could jump 4 feet in the air and snatch a tennis ball from that same air.  He loved pounding into the ocean and biting at the waves.  He was a beautiful, magical creature that saved me from despair the first time I got really sick.

 

When I found him, he weighed 40 pounds, had mange, and one leg was so damaged he couldn't walk on it.  But when I went to pet him, he let me and seemed to appreciate it.  When I opened the back door of the car, he hopped in, ready to go.  I went to see him at the vet during the three days they hold them when strays are brought in.  They accused me of lying, saying that he was not my dog to avoid the fees.  I brought in my mate who confirmed that I had no pets and never did.  I was collegiate, transient, pets were not apartment friendly.  But this dog touched me and seemed to light up when I came to visit him.  So I visited him every day, walked him, saw that he somehow had the energy to hop after a ball.  I felt that it was the least I could actually do for him, some kind companionship as he waited to pass from the misery that had become his life.

I checked back in after the fourth day and they had not killed him.  His handlers couldn't do it.  He was getting better.  But if they didn't find a foster rehab home for him, he would have to be killed in a few days.  He was a very large dog, but they felt that his age, 3-5, and his temperament made him a good candidate for the Lab Rescue program.  He would find a good home if he could live long enough to get there (and a small testicular sacrifice).  I still couldn't afford it, but they said they would cover all of that.  So we took him in.  And could not give him up when the time came, despite a sudden $600 non-refundable pet fee.  And he was with me for the next 12 years, my constant companion, riding in my cars,  following me to my pottery studio, jogging with me through the city, waiting at night for my husband to come home.  So when he suffered, I killed him.

My current dog was abandoned by an idiot who bought a shepherd/rottie mix the same month she had a baby so "they could grow up together".  She was thrown in a pen in the yard six months later when the baby turned into a handful and the dog outweighed it by 40 pounds. She is sweet and a good watchdog, but dumb as a post and skittish due to under-socialization, malnutrition, and mistreatment from birth to six months, the whole childhood of a dog.  I agreed to take her when they moved away, hoping that the company of my dog would help her and that she would be a playmate for him.  He was a very good teacher and friend to her.  And she learned to play ball with him.  He taught her to be a good dog and enjoy life, essentially.  

 

She fared much better with love and kindness, but some things don't "fix" regardless of intent and effort.   When I had my son, I had to watch her and never leave the baby alone with her.  He is finally old enough to simply avoid her and her skittish, nervous temperament.  But she is slow moving, losing her sight, her hearing is failing, and she is in the end game.  I will not be as patient with her, I know myself.  I loved my dog, but I am her caretaker.  She follows me and sleeps at the foot of my bed, but I never call her up onto it.  And she would rather not be up there, she goes back to her area within a few minutes of "bed" time.   She is not him.

So at fifteen years, it is her time and I will send her gently into the good night because she deserves that kindness, to not suffer  past the point when the terrible life we rescued her from becomes a different terrible life of hanging on for no good reason.  Her best friend has been gone 6 years now and I know that she still mourns him, although she wears his collar now.

 

She is currently resting, snoozing comfortably in her bed, like she does most of the day, the good end game for a good dog.  I will schedule it this time, though, like the vet recommends.  She said that people who "just can't do it" are not good owners, because the animal suffers because of their owner's emotional weakness. 

And this is Part I of my issue with animals, eating them, killing them, living with them, loving them, treating them humanely.

For me, if you hold them captive to be your "pet", you owe them something better than they would find on their own, you are obligated until the humane end of the relationships you initiate with creatures that have little choice in the matter.

That has been my experience with dogs, creatures which some people still eat, but not me.  

 

In Part II,  I will explain my experience with pigs, hog farms, china, community bonding, cracklin's, pork rinds, bacon, southern food, bbq, delicious pit-roasted pigs...magical animals that originate all good meats.