The Great Animal Welfare debate

[rahmota]

About the animal finding the treats. That falls under the hunger programming. Finding out how to get the food is one of the trial and error functions of hunger. I bet if you made it hard enough and put a tastier treat or food nearby then they would abandon the tube or other "fun" task to go after the easy prey.

I"ll agree that for most general purposes acting as if the animal had a mind capable of understanding us is harmless. As humans are above animals due to our imagination and creative capability. the day your cat or terrier writes a shaekspearian sonnet or solves einsteinian relativistic mathmatics then we can talk about how close to humans they are.

Originally Posted by Sylvia727
This is because you are a decent person and treat your dogs humanely. However, chaining can be used as a form of abuse and abandonment.

Exactly. There's a huge difference between 'restrained in some manner but still with access to food, water, shelter, and a four-legged or two-legged pack' and the kind of chaining/caging that results in a canine maniac.

Well yeah you know that and I know that but some of the nutjobs at PETA dont seem to have that figured out. We had a small group of them come into our county a few years ago and try to tell people out here that putting a dog on any chain or otherwise restraining them was harmful and cruel. That the way we in a FARMING community was treating our animals was just cruel and bad and nasty by just the way we where doing things. Lets suffice to say that the sheriff had to escort them out of the couty for their own safety.

Provided we were in a situation where we could obtain enough food to support the civilisation.

Which is where the human's superior adapatability and creativeity come into the forefront. Animals run out of food they will turn on and eat themselves. Humans for the most part have the ability to band together for the common good and develop new ways of doing things. Investigating and attempting new sources of food and resources.

[Dreamstalker]

About the animal finding the treats. That falls under the hunger programming. Finding out how to get the food is one of the trial and error functions of hunger.

I would tend to say it's not programming as my cat has food in his dish and knows it. The treats he gets are just that, treats (not "real" food as we don't want him expecting his kibble in the living room as has happened). If it was hunger per se, when faced with the puzzle and a full bowl in the open, the puzzle would be ignored every time.

We've come home and a bag of dry food was on the floor, knocked off a counter which we didn't think he could get to. He wasn't hungry (we always make sure the fuzzball has plenty of food), just bored. The catnip floor-bomb was also not hunger as he had food. Quite a leap (pardon the pun) to connect catnip/kibble, fridge/counter. how-do-I-get-up-there (he pulled both missions off very gracefully at that, not disturbing anything else that could have been knocked over).

I've always wondered, what exactly do animals see/think? I feel that the human rubric of intelligence isn't the only one.

[rahmota]

maybe maybe not. Untill and unless we can ever figure out a way to achieve real and effective communication this sort of question is going to be one for the philosophers. Personally I dont think animals are as smart as humans or as capable of the depth of emotion and thoguht as we are. Some are closer than others and some may seem like they are truely capable of it but *shrug* I dunno. Any way you look at it it is a bad thing to mistreat an animal. For no better or worse reason than needless or useless violence is a waste of time, energy, honor, whatever.