Dogs Dragging, Cow Dragged

by Stephanie Ernst · 2009-03-09 12:50:00 UTC
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This year's Iditarod has begun. Doris Lin asks, "If a dog were left outside in freezing cold weather for twelve days, would you consider that to be neglectful? Or if a dog were forced to run 1,100 miles across a frozen tundra in sub-zero temperatures, would that be animal cruelty?" Yes--unless, of course, humans are having fun and making money off the cruelty. What's a little exploitation, cruelty, injury, and death when humans can gain superficial pleasure and amusement and when there's profit involved?

In other news, this Massachusetts (local? family?) farmer is a lovely fellow. When one of "his" cows wandered off his property and onto someone else's, and he went to retrieve her (I'm using "her" here, but I really don't know--the article refers to the cow as "it," of course), he tied her to the back of his truck and drove off, dragging her to her death. I wonder, could he hear her bellowing out in pain and terror from the cab of the truck as she died?

He denies it happened. Outraged witnesses insist it did. (Now someone send any outraged cow-eating witnesses some cattle slaughter videos please.) The misdemeanor animal cruelty charge being sought "carries a potential five-year prison term and $2,500 fine." Yeah, and the already-low maximum terms and fines are so often meted out in these cases. I won't hold my breath. After all, that cow? She was just somebody's property and product, just "food"--indeed "food" people have likely already eaten by now.

Do I seem particularly irritated with my fellow humans today? Well, I suppose I am. It's one of those days.

Stephanie Ernst wrote the original Animal Rights blog at Change.org until December 2009. She can now be found at Animal Rights & AntiOppression.
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