EcoLogical Fail

This is a picture from May 10, 2010. Now that his door is wide open, I can drive past, point and shoot. My camera never ceases to amaze me. I can zoom, and not see anything, and click. The camera has way better vision than I do. Fair enough, I guess, I am a few decades older than my camera. Okay, more than a few:)


Hmmmm. Verrrry interesting.. Hmmm. Flip is considering several options, one of which involves a nap.
Excuse the weird background, my ugly abode shines. I have to take a picture of the picture that gives Flip that tan-coloured "ruff" on the left. That's a round bale.. Picture taken.. Well, you'll see. If I remember anyway. It's one of those gifts from an ex-landlady, that you put in the corner of a room, and hope it goes away. Still hasn't yet.
Dratted FoamCore, it just slowly departicalizes, over time. Hard to notice, in my house.
I'll try to keep this blither really short, because I've found some people seem to skip key words that are important in my admittedly incomprehensible sentences.

Horses are chickens.
because.
Both are considered animals. Laws in place allow for the absolute minimum of care. Food, water, and shelter are all on the books as law. That's a good start. But to continue logically, we must factor in the minimum required ecology for that animal. An environment that is not conducive to daily health should be illegal. It ain't.

There. Did that make sense yet??
sigh. Probably not. We don't seem to give a rats' behind about people and ecology and environment, why should animals be any less important, or even important, at all?

That's the crux of the animal welfare debate. How much is "too" much welfare? How much is too little? Why care at all, with all of the troubles besieging the world?

Voluntary good management/sound practices that benefit the animal, while still benefiting the producer, are easily obtainable through the literature our government so generously offers. Ignoring these practices is not illegal.

You can do anything you want to your animals, in the comfort/privacy of your own home.

It is none of my business what other people do with their animals, in those circumstances. But as the person I am, what choice do I have when I see this picture, every day, in front of my face/house/where we've chosen to live?

never mind. Purely rhetorical question there. Gotta Bitch, I do. Anybody else love Gene Kelly when he sang "Gotta Dance..."
You gotta do what you gotta do.
ayup.

Canine Tangents.
When I worked that half-year in Animal Control, I responded to a cruelty complaint of a dog locked in a store.
When I arrived, I saw a LARGE glassed in store front, and a grinning doberman cross on the other side of the glass. The owner met me there, furious that he'd had someone call AC in, and I placated him with the usual, "We have to respond to every complaint, even when they are groundless" line.

We went into the large store, floor to ceiling glass windows on the entire one side, the area full of large sheets of newspaper and cardboard. Clean, not smelly at all. Lots of water, air-conditioned. Toys of many descriptions were buried under piles of paper/board.

It was a busy area, and lots of pedestrian passers-by. Happy dog demonstrated his latest job of following passers-by with a wad of paper in his mouth, grinning from ear to ear. I wished the dog had more company, but all in all... The owner took him home each night, and goofy dog "guarded" the front of his store everyday.

Dog had a pretty good gig, all in all. At least he had something to do, that was not bad for him to do. None of his behaviours gave me any cause for alarm. Nothing repetitive, nothing aggressive. He was a happy, friendly, goofball, with a good job.

If chickens are eventually mandated to be able to move about and preen and act like chickens, without basting in their own excrement, talk to me about horses.
Of course, they'll have to fix the genetics of the factory chickens first, seeing as how they bred aggression and extreme cannibalism into them. Yes, chickens can very naturally be that way. But in a more natural ecology and with "normal" aka older genetics, they are not, normally.

Cribbing...
In AC's natural ecology, he didn't crib. Don't forget, it took him three days in the garage to show his stress by cribbing. Now it is once again a stereotyped behaviour, more embedded than ever.

You have to start SOMEwhere, with welfare for all domesticated creatures.

Why not mandate proper care/humane and educated treatment for them all?
Rhetorically out:)