Dogs

September 3, 2018 9:55 am Update

Millions of Americans are celebrating the new holiday on the first Monday of September known as Labrador Day. This new holiday honors the Labrador Retriever, the most loyal of human companions. Businesses across the country are giving their employees and clients free dog cookies and sample size bags of dog food. Some employers have worked with local rescue facilities to even offer their employees discounts on the purchase of a rescue dog of their choice, including non Labrador breeds.

The replacement of Labor Day with Labrador Day has raised a few heckles from dog hating legacy organizations known as Labor Unions. But faced with being associated with those who eat dog meat and animal abusers, criticism of the Labrador Holiday has been muted. Indeed, the Labrador Day holiday has been one of the most popular acts by congress in the past twenty years, especially as it made it possible for the first time to take a tax deduction for pet ownership.

Labrador Day has saved businesses millions in overtime and paid compensation costs by eliminating the paid holiday. Many employees came out ahead too as legacy employers like the federal government not only give their employees free dog treats, they got a new floating holiday that they could take off any day they wanted to take off.

Businesses also celebrated Labrador Day by highlighting their products available for sale to the dog owner, often offering special discounts to customers during the Labrador Day Weekend. Communities throughout the nation celebrate and honored dog owners with great parades of people walking their dogs while children on the sidewalk hand the passing dogs treats. Many pool complexes closing for the end of summer offer dogs a chance to swim.

Labrador Day Weekend throughout the nation is viewed as one of the greatest accomplishments of Congress, maybe the greatest in 50 years. Dogs are honored, children are having a tag wagging good time as the unofficial last weekend of summer comes to a close.

Abbie

Waste Pets

I am opposed to the notion of β€œrescue” pets and β€œshelters” that animal rights extremists have put forward lately. While I believe there should be a market for β€œused” and β€œsalvage” pets like dogs and cats, I think the reason we should be β€œsaving” unwanted or β€œstray” pets is not because they are cute or lovable, but because a β€œbred” pet involves a significant amount of labor and food to raise to become something that can be sold as a pet by the breeder.

So called β€œrescue” pets are usually a lot more affordable then β€œbred” pets. Not everybody can afford an expensive β€œbred” pet from a pet breeder. The β€œused” or β€œrescue” pet should be an affordable alternative, one that often comes house-broken or trained with skills not available on the β€œbred” market. Salvaging a used or stray dog and cat, should not be seen as a noble act, but one done to recover all the value and investment in that dog or cat. Shelters should not be seen as a shelters, but as salvage yards, there to recover useful value in the stock, rather then an entity to β€œsave” a pet, for which there is an inexhaustible supply.

Dogs and cats are inherently reproducible. Dogs and cats not neutered have puppies and kittens. They can have lots of them. After all, they are livestock, they can be indefinitely bred to produce to future stock. There is skill in raising them, there are materials consumed to produce future generations of pets, but for all practical purposes, the supply of dogs and cats will never be used up. If anything, there is an over-supply of pets in parts of the country, with undesirable and unwanted pets in need of disposal.

Disposal of unwanted pets can be done in an environmentally sustainable fashion. In a landfill, they are organic material which is unlikely to release hazardous materials, except the normal organics like methane and organic leachate into the environment. The same is true with incineration of unwanted pets – they are made up almost entirely of water and carbon-based organics like fat, muscle, and hair – and incinerated a proper temperatures are unlikely to produce much besides carbon dioxide and water vapor. Most pets are carnivores, which poses more problems with composting, but most industrial composting facilities reach temperatures to kill off pathogens. Obviously, with our carbon constrained future, industrial composting of waste pets is the best solution for disposal.

Salvaging β€œwaste” pets like dogs and cats, through so-called rescues makes sense, in so far as the pet has value. It saves resources to put a well-behaved, house broken but β€œunadopted” dog or a cat in a loving home, saving resources compared to raising a new dog or cat. It makes pet ownership more affordable for the working man. Salvage efforts through rescues, save energy, save human labor, save food, medicine, and other resources. But the disposal of unwanted pets with behavioral problems or injuries, that offer little value in resale, often makes sense as unwanted pets pose little ecological hazard in their disposal.

Dogs Use Deception to Get Treats, Study Shows

Dogs Use Deception to Get Treats, Study Shows

"Researchers observed the pooches leading the cooperative partner to the box containing the sausage more often than expected by chance. They led the competitive partner to the sausage less often than expected by chance. And here’s where things get really interesting: the dogs took the competitive partner to the empty box more frequently than the cooperative partner, suggesting that they were working through their options and engaging in deliberate deception to maximize their chances of getting both treats."