Gong to the dogs

I think I’ve written about vegetarian dogs, before – I can’t remember. Anyway, I think it’s a bit of a silly idea. Actually, I think there's something unnatural about the way most people treat their dogs. In fact, I think dogs are probably the most unnatural animals on the planet. This is no fault of theirs; their evolution has been manipulated by human behaviour towards them and they’ve lapped it up, to the point that they are now perhaps the only animals incapable of looking after themselves. Of course, this excludes the tiny percentage of dogs that are wild dogs. In fact, wild dogs serve as an illustration of how far domestic dogs have deviated from their natural state – you wouldn’t catch a wild dog whimpering and looking forlornly at a human in the hope of being thrown a scrap of food.

Left to their own devices, domestic dogs become starved and diseased scavengers. It’s a sad state of affairs. They also bark mindlessly at things and poo in parks and on footpaths. Yep, I’m no fan of owning dogs. And now, in yet another example of man’s ability to humiliate and further downtread the canine species, a man in India has taught his pet to perform yoga. And he thinks the fact that he’s a vegetarian and the dog is a vegetarian shows how enlightened he is.

The deluded owner says: "He was weak when he was born. We took special care of him and he gradually became strong after his yoga lessons. He has won many prizes at dog shows and he recently won the medal for best health."

Jesus, don’t get me started on dog shows ...

Meanwhile, talking of deluded people, this anti-vegetarian article is preposterously bad. I particularly liked the author’s four reasons why the world shouldn’t be vegetarian. He writes: “Radical animal rightists and bioethicists would like meat to be phased out of human nutrition altogether and turn the population into vegetarians. Such a policy would be disastrous at least in four respects:

- It would make the fuel crisis and deforestation much worse, as cooking vegetable matter, particularly fibrous plants, requires much more energy than does the preparation of meat;

- It would divert time away from production, for cooking and eating vegetables is more time consuming than the preparation of meat dishes

- It would lead to the disappearance of entire domestic breeds and eventually species;

- It would create a nutritional crisis in many parts of the world, leading to starvation, stunting and interference with brain development.”

Suddenly the yoga-loving dog owner seems sane. Take me to the nearest vegetarian dog show – there must be one somewhere?