Tim 
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This week in cognitive dissonance – standard farming practices get performed on a non-farmed animal (at least in the western countries that are so precious about dogs and dismissive of “livestock”) to the publics weeping outrage. A puppy was abandoned in a Victorian school playground having been severely mauled. Nicknamed “Buckley” after a former Collingwood football player, the lonely pup was found with his ears and tail mostly cut off (see photos via story link) http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Puppy-Attack-Buckleys-Ears-And-Tail-Cut-Off-With-Scissors-in-Animal-Cruelty-Attack-In-Australia/Article/200907315339079 The story is extremely sad to be sure but has been milked for every bit of cooing and outrage over the past week, sharing the top stories in Victorian newspapers and abroad to rival masterchefs prominance. A facebook group titled “Justice for Buckley! Increase the maximum penalty for animal cruelty” has been established and is currently gaining members at a rate of twenty thousand a day. I joined the group and agree that law should protect animals but 99% of the members appear not to support its tagline – they want cruelty ended to cats and dogs, not the animals they want caged, milked , and shredded for their plates.
Buckley facebook group Outraged comment include “Let’s hack his tail and ears off, scum bag! 32 years old he needs to be put out of his misery!” and “anyone one who can torture/hurt/kill a animal should be locked up for life! as it is one of the sure signs of a serial killer etc, and none of this rehabilition s*** once a killer always a killer i say!” These are two of the most palatable comments in the group,it has actually turned into a competition to outdo each other posters supposed altruism by referring to the perpetrator with more C and F words and promising more painful dismemberments to him. The filler in between is mostly links to studies connecting animal cruelty and future serial killers.This outrage would be justified if the average Australian citizen didnt inflict (in most cases not able to stomach whats done they pay a farmer or butcher to do it for them)equal and worse treatment on a variety of different animals each and every week of their lives. For arguments sake lets just focus on pigs because they receive the most similar treatment to Buckley as part of the horrible life they are given before ending up on our plates. The general assumption of the public is that Pigs must be of low intelligence among animals to be used as “livestock.” In fact,students of biology and other disciplines concerned with animal nature and behaviour class the species as higher cognitively than cats and dogs. Pigs have less concern for what humans are doing and what their voice and facial expression indicate than dogs but in terms of intelligence this is a red herring. A dog’s focus and apparent knowledge of human gesture has been bred into them over a couple of thousand years, wolves that have not been custom bred by humans have no interest in and do not eye-track human hand movements once they begin a task or respond accordingly to different emotive tones of human voice whereas a domesticated dog continually glances at its human trainer / “owner” for further cues even after it has commenced an instructed task or game. Evidence of this is available in this document http://www.uwsp.edu/PSYCH/s/275/Science/CleverCanines05.pdf Lacking this kind of intertwined and custom bred domestic relationship with humans, pigs do not seem overly interested in us in comparison to Canines but are quite ingenious when necessary and have been observed performing group tasks such as opening gates with mechanisms that would be impossible for one pig alone to press / unlatch. In addition to this pigs have been trained to conquer much more abstract tasks as quoted from the article linked below “Using their snouts, pigs can even be taught to maneuver a modified joystick to move a cursor on a video monitor.” http://www.rps.psu.edu/probing/pigs.html (an article on pig intelligence) The study referenced in the article concluded that a comparison to dogs and cats was inadequate and that pigs actually learn and understand new tasks “As quickly as chimpanzees.”
Piglet Having Teeth Ripped out without Anaesthetic
Farming animals will always be about putting human profit before the needs and welfare of the animals in question. For this reason the horrendous treatment of pigs is seen as necessary. In order to make pork products profitable pigs are kept in cramped,hellish conditions. The same conditions would drive humans who knew nothing else to abnormal behaviour as it does in pigs. Being penned in and jammed against other pigs leads to cannibalistic behaviours like tail biting and attacking wounds or other exposed flesh on fellow pigs. Acknowledging the value of individual pigs, the capacity for feeling,knowledge of self and if it is to be our benchmark (we claim it is) – their impressive intelligence we should have abolished pig farming/slavery but instead we have created further brutal techniques of mutilation. To prevent pig biting other pigs we take them as infants and rip out their teeth without anaesthetic . To prevent open wounds that could spoil hindquarters to be used as meat we cut their tails without anaesthetic. The male piglets have the added torture of having their scrotums cut open to remove their testicles (without anaesthetic of course – to spend money on pain relief for our food hardly seems logical ?). In addition to this piglets can look forward to ear notching – “Large hunks of each piglet’s ears are sliced off with scissors to make identification patterns,” – http://www.goveg.com/factoryFarming_pigs_mutilation.asp. Quotes from a sky news article (http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Puppy-Attack-Buckleys-Ears-And-Tail-Cut-Off-With-Scissors-in-Animal-Cruelty-Attack-In-Australia/Article/200907315339079) on the pup are perfect in juxtaposition to the recommended method for teeth pulling , “The puppy would have received no anaesthetic and would have made a lot of noise.” Doesn’t this sound familiar when compared to the recommended way to pull teeth (quoted from A.L.V. website) “An industry website advises holding a finger across the animal’s trachea to suppress screaming” – not only does this institutionalised practice make piglets scream in agony but its so widespread,commonplace and expected that there are recognised methods to avoid the minor annoyance of coping with the unsettling noise from the restrained pig. After this treatment as a piglet,the cramped and disgusting conditions for their lifetime, an adult pig can look forward to having its throat slit before being dumped into a vat of boiling water (often conscious and screaming after a botched throat slitting) to remove hair and soften skin for our consumption. I expect some readers of this article to be shocked, some dismissive and some to laugh it off and make jokes about how delicious bacon is. For those of you who are shocked, there is the easy option of not consuming these animals which reduces the demand for these animals and by filling your plate with something else many pigs won’t endure enslavement and ordeals before the fear and pain of slaughter but as a society larger change needs to come through our laws A certain savvy lawyer friend of mine told me this week that we do actually have legislation in Victoria that recognises animals have a right not to be treated with “unnecessary cruelty” whatever “unnecessary cruelty” may be. The problem with the legislation is a huge exception for “livestock” animals, in their particular case common farming practices are automatically deemed to be reasonable and these practices are defined by the farming industry themselves! If we are concerned we will change our diets and seek to change our laws. I see the horror of what happened to Buckley but its happening thousands of times a minute to animals just as capable of suffering and sentience. Pigs are not ours to own any more than we are theirs.