Posted on 06/21/2012 2:09:38 PM PDT by libstripper
By your choice of the word "like" we know of the depth of your feelings toward dogs.
I think of the dogs I have known and compare them to the overwhelming majority of the human beings I have known and the dogs win, hands down.
We likewise lost our Louie (a Yorkie) to lymphoma. He got sick in November and we got him well. He had a strong five months, seemed he was not ever sick at all, and then the cancer came back attacking his colon. We had to put him down in April. But, I swear, he has not left. He lives on in our hearts and there are numerous signs of him around our house yet. He was five years old. Losing him has broken our collective hearts. I just know we’ll see him again.
My dog Wink died in September. I still grieve. Dogs matter, they really do.
I like dogs as much as the next guy
Some “next guys” don’t like dogs. My dog is part of my family, person or not.
It’s so hard to lose them.
Pam's little dog has been living at the home of her birth brother,
Little Bit, where she has been adored and loved since she was born.
She would have been 16 years old in October.
Today, Pam's little yorkie, d'Ogee
Made her trip to Rainbow Bridge.
Your Mommy is waiting for you,
sweet darling d'Ogee....
Her ashes will be scattered with Pam's on July 21st.
Cleo and Brother and d'Ogee are playing together
This evening, at Rainbow Bridge
I understand how Ben must feel, but I can't read the article.
I'm so sorry for the loss of your beloved Brother.
((((HUGS)))), Trisham - my heart feels your loss!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ythp1PmYF8&feature=player_embedded
The Divinity Of Dogs - Ben Stein
We tried chemotheraphy on the Golden/Brittany but the vet was never able to get her into remission, the disease was just too aggressive, and she was not a fighter, she just wasn’t.
Our next rescue came with a maligant mast cell tumor, and I just sighed and told the vet that I could really pick ‘em. He was able to remove enough margins that she remained cancer-free for seven years until her death at age 11 from liver disease (which she fought for 22 months). I’ve only seen her once, in a dream, and she was healthy, happy and racing through beautiful fields,
This time we adopted a 10 yo Aussie Shepherd mix and a 3 yo pointer-setter mix. They get along beautifully; we’ve never had two dogs at the same time, and they make us laugh with their antics.
LSAggie (posting on hubby’s account)
Have tried replying . . . may email you.
Very grieved to hear of your furry friend’s graduation.
Sigh.
Prayers for your recovery process in every respect.
LUB,
HUGS.
Thanks, yorkie. You’re very kind.
Drats.
Double drats.
Dunno what to say.
How are you holding up?
Listen I’m not trying to put anyone down for loving dogs, I have enjoyed many dogs as well, especially my Shep-mix, Flash. And of course it’s easier to like a dog more than people, they display unfettered affection and all you have to do is feed them and play with them and give them a place to sleep. But it’s still a dog in the end. My “depth of feeling” or implied lack thereof is based on a value system that holds human life above animal, no more, no less. After all, Hitler doted on his dogs, so I can assume his depth of feeling towards dogs was higher than mine.
I see, bringing Hitler into this...
Old Possum, I’m not trying to imply that anyone on this board is the equivalent of Hitler because they love dogs, just using an extreme example to make the point that just because someone loves dogs doesn’t necassarily make them a good person and conversely, because someone doesn’t assign personhood to dogs or other animals does it make them a bad person. If dogs (and other animals) are made into equal status as humans with rights, it becomes easier to devalue human life and subjugate them to the same status as other beasts of burden, in other words, property.
Here’s where we fundamentally disagree: “a value system that holds human life above animal, no more, no less.”
I don’t necessarily hold human life above animal in all instances. Of the dogs that I have cared for, I cannot think of a single one whose life and value I would place beneath that of all criminals in the world and, and I would add, beneath that of a helluva lot of non-criminals I have come across in my life. I have had the displeasure of dealing with total jerks and I would not give a damn if all of them were to disappear from this earth right now. But the dogs I have had to pleasure of knowing and have lost, those are the creatures whose return would be precious to me.
You can hold such concepts of human life as always being worth more than animal life but we cannot agree on that fundamental belief and probably never will.
P.S. In evaluating a person, if I know that that person has a lot of bad characteristics but still loves dogs, to me that alleviates some of their “badness.” In other words, a person who loves dogs cannot be totally bad in my view.
If you, on the other hand, don’t like dogs, that means nothing to me. Different strokes, you know.
I do hold people that are needlessly cruel to animals in contempt, but hold abortionists and despots in even higher contempt, and these issues are where the root of my point was when speaking of human life and the devaluation of it. Maybe my trigger was quick to trip when I saw the "person" comment, and was generalizing for the masses when referring to the slippery slope between animal rights, personhood, and devaluation.
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