Beheading Chickens Is OK, but Beheading Cats Is "Over the Top"

One dog, one cat, three chickens -- all were found beheaded in Philadelphia late last week. The AP's brief account of the discovery mentioned only the dog and cat in its intro, the chickens coming up only a few sentences later as having been found "along with" the more important victims. But it's not just the media establishing who the important victims were. The director of investigations for the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals noted that animal sacrifices often increase around this time of year because of religious holidays, but he didn't stop there.

Most sacrifices involve goats or chickens, he noted, and here's the kicker, courtesy of the Philadelphia Daily News:

"This is a little over the top with the dogs and cats," Bengal said. "The use of domestic animals is a bit bizarre."

Oh, so much to say, so much to say. For the record, dogs and cats and chickens and goats are all domesticated animals, and what's bizarre is implying that dogs and cats are not, implying that it matters in the least what category any of these animals fit into anyway (would we be less upset over the beheading of a free-living animal plucked from the woods?), and pronouncing that beheading animals is "over the top" only when dogs and cats are involved.

He went on to point out that charges could be filed against whoever beheaded the dog and cat, but of course, the chickens weren't mentioned here -- because beheading (or otherwise killing) a chicken isn't just a shrug-your-shoulders occurrence for welfare organizations whose mission is supposed to be protecting and advocating for animals (but that in reality advocate for only some animals and even then to unimpressive degrees); it's also perfectly legal and shrugged at by society in general.

There's no meaningful difference between a dog and a goat, a cat and a chicken (this may be a good time revisit the dog-versus-dinner post). Their desire to live and experience joy, their capacity for suffering and fear, their status as beings with individual experiences, thoughts, and personalities, and the absolutely unnecessary nature of our killing them -- they are the same in all these ways. And we should be as concerned about these three chickens -- and the other 9 billion chickens brutally killed each year in the United States alone -- as we are about the dog and cat. Not one of them wanted or deserved to die, not for anyone's religion and not for anyone's dinner either.

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Photo by Flickr user Eran Finkle