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I don't understand how neutering an animal is considered "kindhearted". The fact that this is such a common idea suggests to me that even people who believe th

• srean 4y ago
  > I don't understand how neutering an animal is considered "kindhearted". You have a good point. That's what I get when I edit to add a word in later. 'Kindhearted' was intended to qualify 'immunization'. On the other hand we do neuter ourselves (some forms of birth control can be considered neutering with different levels of reversibility), but the difference is that it happens with consent and is voluntary. For the 'social problem' of strays neutering is an acceptable compromise struck between the dog lover and dog hater groups. I would rather have a stray neutered rather than killed in a kill shelter or worse, stoned on the streets to death. The latter is not uncommon in a few states in my country. You might be interested in the fact that in India dolphins have some of the human like legal rights. Definitely some progress. Not sure if Orcas would come under the folds of the same law. I dont think Orcas are to be found in Indian territorial waters.
  • pvaldes 4y ago
    > I would rather have a stray neutered rather than killed in a kill shelter or worse, stoned on the streets to death This is a false dichotomy. The kind of people that stone a dog to death, will do gladly the same with a neutered dog. Is just a releasing frustration mechanism. Finding somebody lower in the social scale to pick on him/her, is psychologically comforting in a twisted sense. The ugly truth is that it makes us feel better. The concepts of "good" and "bad people" play a main role and are deeply engraved in human cultures. We do horrible things to "bad people", "nazis" etc, all the time. But I digress. Is really useful to neuter stray dogs?. Most probably not. Would be the same as proposing to neuter coyotes. Top predators self regulate its numbers being strongly territorial. Only the alpha pair in a pack is allowed to reproduce, and the space is filled to its capacity, so neutering the rest would not made any difference (just make vets richer). Is just animal cruelty by part of a pool of people unable to deal with basic concepts of being alive, as pain and death, and that secretly yearn for control over other's lives to hide the lack of control over their own lives.
    • srean 4y ago
      > This is a false dichotomy. The kind of people that stone a dog to death, will do gladly the same with a neutered dog. Is just a releasing frustration mechanism. Hard disagree at least in my local context. You seem to harbor quite a strong conviction but uninformed of the situation here. That doesn't help much other than, as you said, 'it makes us feel better'. Its through adopting these population control measures have locals been able to strike a compromise between, for lack of a better terminology, anti-stray and pro-stray folks. That the strays are neutered and would not by themselves lead to an increase in their numbers have helped persuade residents to be kinder, though somewhat reluctantly. The number of dead puppies per year have gone down, so have calls to the municipal corporation to exterminate the strays. It may sound harsh, but I will readily take that concrete benefit rather than judgements and opinions from the internet. > Finding somebody lower in the social scale to pick on him/her, is psychologically comforting in a twisted sense. This is spot on. I am just thankful that these has gone down some. Funnily enough its not just dog lovers vs those who do not like dogs. There have been instances of setting pet dogs against the strays. So yeah we as people do gratuitously horrible things. The stray population here has a very different dynamics and replacement sources from Coyote population, so I dont think that example generalizes.
  • cheese_goddess 4y ago
    > That's what I get when I edit to add a word in later. 'Kindhearted' was intended to qualify 'immunization'. Fair enough. Sorry for reacting reflexively to your wording. > I would rather have a stray neutered rather than killed in a kill shelter or worse, stoned on the streets to death. Ideally, we should teach people that it's wrong to kill animals just because they're bothersome. Legislation, social pressure and changing mores can get that message across loud and clear and then we won't have to either neuter or kill strays. Where I live btw, dogs -strays and not, alike- tend to die not stoned but poisoned. Whether that's on purpose, or the dogs eat something they shouldn't (like rat poison) I have no idea. The word on the street is that people leave poisoned food out on purpose to kill an animal that's causing them trouble (like killing their chickens) and then inevitably kill a couple more that they didn't intend to. I don't know how true that is. That is of course extremely illegal, but nobody ever gets caught for it.
    • srean 4y ago
      No apologies needed, it was indeed poorly worded and I noticed it myself before you had commented. By then it was past the edit window. > Ideally, we should teach people that it's wrong to kill animals just because they're bothersome. Amen. > Where I live btw, dogs -strays and not, alike- tend to die not stoned but poisoned. We had one such case and I have no idea whether that was intentional. I would like to believe that it was not. It was my first experience of seeing one dog grieve another for weeks and then die months after because it had stopped eating.