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| "Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals"
Posted: 10/8/2006 8:41:35 PM | "Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals"...that was what was on the signs the protestors were carrying at the entrance to the professional bull riding the other night.
I of course honked my horn. Okay, yes, I stopped and took a pamphlet.
In truth, the whole show was a bit lame compared to a "real" rodeo...it was more like the Frank Weed Reptile Show at the Bill Lynch Shows, circa 1973.
What do you think? Is taking bulls from Alberta on the road to do shows all over North America crueltry?
If so, should Mick Jagger be charged with cruelty to Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood for dragging them all over the world like two drunk monkeys to play the 2.5 Chuck Berry riffs they can still remember?
Discuss in your best junior high school French. No babelfish. | |
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| Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals
Posted: 10/8/2006 10:08:48 PM | | On an almost related note, I was once asked for a donation to "Support child Poverty". I laughed and laughed, but I don't think the canvassers got it. Heh. | |
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| Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals
Posted: 10/8/2006 11:14:22 PM | No it's not cruelty.
If those animals were treated badly they wouldn't be able to perform in the rodeo ring. Those animals are athletes and are treated as such. Their owners derive income from those animals. If any of the animals get sick or injured that means a loss of income for their owners. | |
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~Tia~
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Joined: 7/17/2005
Msg: 4 | |
| Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals
Posted: 10/9/2006 3:45:20 AM | The bulls are indeed top athletes. They are not treated badly until they are prepared to go in the ring, and for the 8 seconds plus that they have the bull rope tied tightly around their abdomens, passing across the area where their sexual organs are, causing large amounts of pain in order to make them buck. The bulls wouldn't buck nearly so violently if that rope wasn't there. Is it cruel to do this? I guess that depends on your point of view. The rope forces a specific type of behaviour. Putting a bridle on a horse, with a bit in it's mouth, forces a specific type of behaviour. Puting a collar and leash on a dog forces a specific type of behaviour. Without the bull riding, what would the purpose of these bulls be? There wouldn't be much for them to do. Chances are, there would be a fair amount of them euthanized.
I personally think that a lot of the crap that the protesters were daying was just that, crap. I'm sorry, how, exactly, do you force a 2000+ animal to breed? Copulation is instinctual for the animal kingdom, and if you put a bull anywhere near a cow in heat, he's going to want to breed. Is artificial insemination considered to be forcing an animal to breed? If so, god help all the other animals in the world. The top show dogs, top of the line Schutzhund competitors, the horses, etc. Artificial insemination is much less cruel, in my opinion, than flying a dog or a horse all over the world in order to be a responsible breeder and make sure you've got the right parents for the litter/foal.
So, I personally don't think that the minute or so that it takes for preparing the bull for the ring, the 8 seconds in the ring, and the amount of time between the rider being tossed and the rope being removed, is cruel to the point that these people should be protesting it. There are so many other things in the world that are much more pressing, that they could bring attention and funds to, in order to help, that I personally consider them to be wasting valuable time and resources on a minor circumstance.
That said, those who know me, know that I am an animal activist, but I am also a realist. Put the animal rights protesting and funds where it is most needed, and can do the larger good. Head up to Quebec and find a puppy mill, and protest until they've been put out of business. Protest the pet stores, so they'll stop selling live animals that are purchased from places where the animals are kept in cruel and unhealthy environments previous to purchase. Protest beef and dairy cattle being fed animal remains along with their normal feed in order to make them larger, and therefore more profitable, as well as possibly passing along "mad cow disease". If you're going to protest, then protest something that is actually causing a long term issue, not something that for a few days puts bulls in a ring with riders on them. Hell, I'd have been there to see it if I could have afforded to. I root for the bulls, with no serious injuries to the riders, but still.  | |
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| Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals
Posted: 10/9/2006 4:17:04 AM | I think people need to direct their protesting engeries in other directions, perhaps to where it is needed more, say to the cause of the homeless or injustices committed against children and humanity. Not to mention the spread of AIDS and the use of narcotic substances the destroy lives and the lives of whole families.
Tim
=)x | |
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P51D
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Joined: 1/18/2006
Msg: 6 | |
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| Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals
Posted: 10/9/2006 5:12:06 AM | I don't think there can be any doubt about it...tying a rope around the animal's nuts then jumping on top and kicking it in the ribs with spurs...is cruel.
And, as it turns out, not really all that entertaining.
My nephew asked me after an hour when it was going to be over...so I said "Oh they haven't even started to stick any swords in them, so we'll be here for a while yet, because it's not over until they kill all the bulls. You know this is a bull fight too, right?"
Sure, there are more cruel things to do to bulls...but bullriding is definitely cruel.
Everyone who disagrees should get inside a small closet, tie their genitals tightly in hemp rope, jump out and try to remove the rope without using their hands.... before sitting to type their reply. | |
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~Tia~
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Joined: 7/17/2005
Msg: 9 | |
| Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals
Posted: 10/9/2006 5:16:21 AM | Everyone who disagrees should get inside a small closet, tie their genitals tightly in hemp rope, jump out and try to remove the rope without using their hands.... before sitting to type their reply.
And once again, you ask for opinions and discussion, then decide that anyone who disagrees with you is wrong. Why ask for opinions and discussion if you've already made up your mind, and will insult those who don't agree? Why not just sit in your little closet and play your silly games alone.
well said,Anything that you do to an animal that isn't in their best interests is cruel.
I hope you don't have dogs that you show in agility or any other brand of showing then, because that's not in the "best interests" of the dogs. It's not the natural purpose for a dog, therefore can't possibly be in their best interests. Don't keep an indoor cat either, they can't practice their instinctual purpose in life that way, the hunting and killing of small mammals. And for god's sake, don't ever go horseback riding. How is putting a saddle and bridle on a horse in it's best interests? | |
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P51D
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Joined: 1/18/2006
Msg: 10 | |
| Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals
Posted: 10/9/2006 5:19:59 AM |
Everyone who disagrees should get inside a small closet, tie their genitals tightly in hemp rope, jump out and try to remove the rope without using their hands.... before sitting to type their reply.
So, you've tried this yoursefl? | |
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| Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals
Posted: 10/9/2006 5:33:07 AM | Tia: of all the responses, yours seems to me to be the most well thought out and the most accurate.
And yes - before you start throwing your support behind the "ban the bull riding" folks, take a look at the puppies and kittens being sold in your local pet store.
Honestly - when I saw the title, I was sure I was going to be asked to donate money to the Puppy Kicking Association of Nova Scotia. | |
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| Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals
Posted: 10/9/2006 5:40:19 AM |
I don't think there can be any doubt about it...tying a rope around the animal's nuts then jumping on top and kicking it in the ribs with spurs...is cruel.
And to further prove your point....here's an excerpt from an article about a group of parents who are suing a school board in San Francisco for taking their kids to a rodeo.
"Horses and cattle have incurred back and neck injuries, torn ligaments and broken bones, and have suffered severed spinal cords and tracheas. In order to make the animals frantic, stock handlers and cowboys provoke the animals with electric prods, kicks, and slaps. Then handlers tighten the "bucking strap," which causes the animal to buck wildly as he leaves the pen. At the 2000 Grand National Rodeo, a bull was killed, which upset and traumatized children and adults who witnessed the event."
Nice, really nice. Makes me want to hurl. And yes 1CC thank you for that comment about the kittens and puppies being sold at your local pet store. Most people don't realize where those poor animals are coming from (puppy mills) and that there are no regulations to protect those innocent animals from being brokered. Sad, truly sad. | |
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| Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals
Posted: 10/9/2006 5:42:26 AM | I hope you don't have dogs that you show in agility or any other brand of showing then, because that's not in the "best interests" of the dogs. It's not the natural purpose for a dog, therefore can't possibly be in their best interests.
Modifying the 'job' that a dog was historically designed to do, is hardly not in the "best interest" of the dog. As long as the new job is not inhumane, which agility is not. Most agility clubs focus on creating positive and fun experiences for dogs and handlers, as do many of the new-ish dog sports. Dogs, cats and other animals have evolved and are far away from their natural purposes. And to use that logic back, I hope you don't even OWN a dog or cat because their original and instinctual purpose wasn't to be domesticated pets. They were bred and created to serve a purpose. Rodent control, herding sheep, hunting etc. Not to be pets. Unfortunately that is also the 'logic' the animal rights movement uses to say we should not own pets at all. And dangerous logic at that.
Cruelty in sport is a different subject alltogether. I haven't seen the rodeo so I can't comment specifically on that. Bulls, dogs, horses.... there isn't any excuse for any cruelty to them in the name of sport or otherwise.
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~Tia~
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Joined: 7/17/2005
Msg: 15 | |
| Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals
Posted: 10/9/2006 5:45:09 AM | Thank you ,Tia, for enlightening me,I still believe what I said to be true.
Believe what you choose to believe. Don't let the facts confuse you. Also, keep in mind that I didn't once say that bull riding wasn't cruel, I stated that the animals were top athletes and were not treated badly EXCEPT for those few minutes before, during and after, the actual bull ride. I also stated that the majority of them wouldn't even be alive without bull riding, and that it's not possible to force a 2000+ pound bull to breed, which is one of the "cruel" things that are done, according to the protesters.
Tia: of all the responses, yours seems to me to be the most well thought out and the most accurate.
You know me well, you know that I have done research up to my eyeballs and beyond on all aspects of animal husbandry and ownership, breeding, treatment and care. I don't comment on something as controversial as this unless I know what I'm talking about. If others choose to believe the propaganda put out by animal activists without doing any research for themselves, if they choose to believe what is presented as fact by those who have an agenda without ever looking for the information that can be provided by the other side, there's nothing that I, or anyone else, can ever do to change their perspective. No one can form an intelligent opinion without having all the information available to them, and if they close their minds to the information given by the side they don't like, they don't have all the information. | |
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| Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals
Posted: 10/9/2006 5:47:12 AM | | I highly doubt that "the ban the bull riding folks" are exclusively against bull riding.I think it's safe to say they are against puppy mills and anything else that's cruel.I don't think to "throw your support" to them is not to support cruelty elsewhere. | |
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| Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals
Posted: 10/9/2006 5:47:26 AM | I would say a new event for the exhibitionist exhibition or the next installment of Jacka$$.
For those with conviction, it's a beautiful day for protesting and working on that fall tan.
And ironically it's National Cruelty to Turkey's Day. | |
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| Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals
Posted: 10/9/2006 5:53:14 AM | Well, I married the son of a cattle rancher so have seen some pretty gross stuff. Pinching cattle, ouch!!! Training animals as athletes seemed pretty tame in comparison.
In the end, most of the cattle ended up in a store near you. I didn't have the stomach for it, did it stop me from buying lean ground beef to make my famous nacho dip? Alas...no.
My ex's dad did have two oxen and 4 percheron horses though who he took to exhibitions for pulling contests (travelled as far as Maine with them). Out of all the animals, these and the horses were most definately the best treated. One of his friends actually got ballons, a stuffed animal, and card when his pulling horse got sick to cheer it up haha.
The animals which competed had their own barn separate from the commodity cattle. They got exercised daily and a lot of money went into their up keep. I'm sure if you asked the oxen, would you rather live in a cold barn and be shipped off to Armstrong meat processing plant within a year of your life....or would you prefer to compete about 6 times this summer and live in style compared to your comrades, they'd probably chose the latter. | |
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| Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals
Posted: 10/9/2006 5:59:17 AM | Polly - you're right. Competition animals lead some of the best "at home" lives of all.
I have owned show horses all my life. You would not believe how spoiled these horses are. They live the life of Riley for sure.
Often if I were selling a horse on, I would only sell it to a "show home", because I knew that it would then be given top-notch care. | |
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| Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals
Posted: 10/9/2006 6:30:03 AM | Polly,
It is the survival of the fittest!!
In the animal kingdom, it is the order of the food chain and the specific usages of each animals which we human domesticate or fully utilize them for consumptions or sports.
''Cruelty'' to many animals certainly a prevailing fact for the human entertainments.
The ''dead meat'' ended up in the stores is really the ''merciful'' killings for human consumptions
I am glad that I am a human who can make choices for myself. 
Edited: Polly go to NB forums and start a few things, will ya? It is so boring over there... | |
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| Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals
Posted: 10/9/2006 8:05:44 AM | Tia, I am prepared to accept for the purposes of this discussion you do not have a scrotum, so the rope around your genitals would perhaps be less daunting and more like a too-small thong or Japanese rope bondage to you. This may have skewed your thinking in your earlier reply. My apologies.
But yes, I would agree with you that breeding show dogs for specific purposes is also inherently cruel. For example, the difference between American and British C ocker Spaniels is in the shape of their craniums....the American breed is selectively bred to produce the small, round skull favoured by the AKA...which is the very thing that makes an American spaniel of poor temperment and a shorter life, due to chronic headaches compared to British spaniels.
If that's not cruelty, I'd be pleased to read your counter-argument.
In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that the whole domestic pet industry is inherently cruel....my favorite dog, were I to own one, would be a Nova Scotia Duck Toller, known for its high spirited waterside play to attract ducks to be shot. Keeping a dog like that in a city house with a backyard, a rope and walks up and down the paved streets is, in my opinion, putting my potential desire for dog companionship and entertainment ahead of the dog's "right" (if domesticated dogs have rights) to be kept in surroundings that allow it to run, jump and play freely by the water and in the woods. Were I living full-time at my cottage, I'd likely have such a dog, though I do not shoot ducks.
By contrast, clubbing seals to provide meat, oils for the perfume industry and the best cold-weather gear ever made, is in my books in the same category as the beef industry...in fact, clubbing wild seals is probably less cruel than raising cows in subsistence pens, pumping them full of chemicals, then shooting them in the head and certainly less cruel than modern poultry farming, which is just obscene by comparison to most anything.
Nobody eats bulls...they're simply circus animals, which puts them in the same category as the killer whales at Marineland (ever been there?....what a toilet!) or those sad animals at that zoo in the Annapolis Valley...one look at those sad lions ought to convince any right thinking individual something's amiss in the balance between the somewhat desirable goal of interactive animal education... and cruelty. | |
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| Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals
Posted: 10/9/2006 2:51:37 PM | Glutes: 
Thank you...your entire post, I couldn't have said it better (except that I didn't know whether bulls were killed for human consumption). I often struggle with the issue of why we deem some animals (dogs, cats, horses) more worthy living beings than others (pigs, cows). It saddens me. In the U.S. they just recently passed a law somewhere prohibiting the killing of horses for human consumption. Why fight for horses and not cows or pigs or lobsters (the very fact that people boil lobsters alive makes me want to hurl!).
Anyway...just wanted to say thanks for getting all that out, I couldn't agree more! | |
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| Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals
Posted: 10/9/2006 3:32:35 PM | | I think a lot depends on the society you live in.Some Asian countries eat dogs and cats. In North America it's frowned upon. Just depends on where you live. | |
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| Thank You For Supporting Cruelty To Animals
Posted: 10/9/2006 4:24:05 PM | I agree Leafs. Traditional diets are not an easy thing to break especially when your body doesn't agree to it.
I was a vegetarian until I hit my 20s. Not for any ethical reasons, I just disliked the taste of meat. I did eventually start to eat it a bit but am still really fussy about meat.
I support anyone who decides to go the vegetarian or vegan way of eating. Its just not something I would enforce on others who are meat eaters.
I really don't know how these bull's were treated. If they were treated badly by all means, stop it. The same with puppy mills. There is a humane way to treat animals and a inhumane way. I can only speak from experience and animals who compete tend to get far more medical care, better accommodations, and are often treated as a part of the family by their owners.
Animals which are used for food are supposed to be treated humanely as well because if no, it can contaminate our food supply.
You are going to find people in both groups who violate laws regarding the humane treatment of animals. Its not right, and something should be done about it. I just don't think you should jump to the conclusion that because an animal is a performer, they are being mistreated. | |
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well said,Anything that you do to an animal that isn't in their best interests is cruel.