mike vick part 1: is that a sweater?
If you have been alive over the last few months you have been made aware, thanks to constant media attention, of the mistakes that Mike Vick has made. What has really begun to bother me as of late is the way our culture has addressed the issues. So please allow me to rant for a time and suggest possible other ways of dealing with said crisis. In a two-part blog, I want to ask questions about two (of many more) things that have surrounded this case, which to millions of Americans has seemed normal.
First off (and perhaps the more insensitive part of the two), let’s remember that Mike Vick killed dogs. Now I am not an inhumane person, and I do love dogs. I think that what Vick and his friends did was disgusting and makes my stomach turn. But dogs do not, as the saying goes, all go to heaven. Not that they go to the other place, the fact is they do not go anywhere. However, the hype around this has been amazing. Thousands of people across the country have sat on their leather couches with their little furry friends next to them. They watch and listen in horror of the news of what Vick did. I am sure there are even some who cover their dogs ears so as not to expose them to the news. They probably whisper things like, “Don’t worry baby girl daddy (or mommy) won’t let that mean man get to you.” They then call friends and doglovers together and say things like, “Dog lovers unite!” Then they go and protest the teammates of Mike Vick who knew nothing of what was happening in the first place.
Meanwhile the dog sits their seeing our HD in black and white and hears, “Blah blah blah blah blahhy blah blah blah blah.” The dog then gets up, stops by its $69 doggie dish and laps up a few drops of purified water, on its way to its personalized bed that has its name embroidered on it. Meanwhile its owner calls the vet to get some pills because clearly his or her dog is depressed. Does this sound ridiculous to anyone else? Let me make a casual observation - dogs are not people, they are animals. Yet for some reason we care for them more than we do people.
Think this isn’t true? Well according to APPMA the spending on pets in 2006 in America was $38,400,000,000. In case you are not good at counting zeros that was billions, not millions. This spending includes things like the Louis Vuitton purses that the Paris Hiltons of this world buy for their little dogs, doggie DVD’s that are sure to stimulate your dog, food, water filters (or you could just buy bottles of Evian), bones, and all kinds of clothing. This comes to an average of roughly $556 per year spent on each pet. On medication and veterinarians alone we spend over $100 per year per pet.
While this sounds like a negligible amount, consider that the average person in Africa receives a meager $14 per year toward healthcare according to the Institute for Health and Social Justice at the Department of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School. According to United Nations Millennium Project Taskforce on Water and Sanitation, the cost to provide clean drinking water to half of the 1.1 billion who need it by the year 2015 is between $10 and $30 billion a year. Our disposable income is going to animal sweaters while men, women, and children die. Our extra cash goes toward a water purifier for our dogs while one person every 18 seconds dies because of unclean water. So we are forced to ask the difficult question, more doggie sweaters or more lives saved?
Do we still say that we don’t value dogs over people? Consider something less damning of Americans who spend more than five times as much on dogs as they do on people. Pet owners across the States call their doggies “their little girls” and refer to themselves as “Mommy” and “Daddy.” We dress them in shirts that say “Big Brother” and even send them to daycare. So elevating their status to that of a person is fine, and some may even argue of their innate worth as beings. Yet, try calling a guy a “horn-dog” and see how that pans out for you. Or call a random woman a b-tch and see how she responds. I can guarantee that in either situation we should probably not expect them to run toward us panting and wanting to be scratched behind their ears, or have them roll over to scratch their little tummies. To spend an insane amount of money on dogs while people die does not make sense, and beyond that it is murder.
Doesn’t the root of this incredible outrage over the criminal activity of Mike Vick point to some sort of illness in our society? Can we just let dogs be dogs, let cats be cats, and give men and women our place as beings made in the image of God? One ESPN reporter remarked, “If Mike Vick had shot and killed someone, there would be less public outrage, compared with what he did.” Indeed we are sick. In fact, in a completely different way, our pursuit of animal equality is as sick as what Mike Vick did.
So let’s take off our dog’s sweaters, stop carrying them around in Italian leather bags, stop calling them sons and daughters (no doubt the chagrin of our biological children), stop comparing them to beings made in the Image of God, and value and appreciate animals for what they are. They are a part of the wonderful creation that God has given to us to care for. Dogs are wonderful animals and truly can bring a smile to us when we are down, keep us company when we are lonely, and remind us of the Creator that chose to create something so wonderful. Oh - and if you are reading this with your dog, there is no need to read it aloud, because they cannot understand one word you are saying.
For the purposes of maintaining some credibility I have listed the sources from which I took the information in this blog:
Institute for Health and Social Justice at the Department of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School - Reported in the Boston Globe on July 11
American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, http://www.appma.org/default.asp
Pet Smart Stores, http://www.petsmart.com
First off (and perhaps the more insensitive part of the two), let’s remember that Mike Vick killed dogs. Now I am not an inhumane person, and I do love dogs. I think that what Vick and his friends did was disgusting and makes my stomach turn. But dogs do not, as the saying goes, all go to heaven. Not that they go to the other place, the fact is they do not go anywhere. However, the hype around this has been amazing. Thousands of people across the country have sat on their leather couches with their little furry friends next to them. They watch and listen in horror of the news of what Vick did. I am sure there are even some who cover their dogs ears so as not to expose them to the news. They probably whisper things like, “Don’t worry baby girl daddy (or mommy) won’t let that mean man get to you.” They then call friends and doglovers together and say things like, “Dog lovers unite!” Then they go and protest the teammates of Mike Vick who knew nothing of what was happening in the first place.
Meanwhile the dog sits their seeing our HD in black and white and hears, “Blah blah blah blah blahhy blah blah blah blah.” The dog then gets up, stops by its $69 doggie dish and laps up a few drops of purified water, on its way to its personalized bed that has its name embroidered on it. Meanwhile its owner calls the vet to get some pills because clearly his or her dog is depressed. Does this sound ridiculous to anyone else? Let me make a casual observation - dogs are not people, they are animals. Yet for some reason we care for them more than we do people.
Think this isn’t true? Well according to APPMA the spending on pets in 2006 in America was $38,400,000,000. In case you are not good at counting zeros that was billions, not millions. This spending includes things like the Louis Vuitton purses that the Paris Hiltons of this world buy for their little dogs, doggie DVD’s that are sure to stimulate your dog, food, water filters (or you could just buy bottles of Evian), bones, and all kinds of clothing. This comes to an average of roughly $556 per year spent on each pet. On medication and veterinarians alone we spend over $100 per year per pet.
While this sounds like a negligible amount, consider that the average person in Africa receives a meager $14 per year toward healthcare according to the Institute for Health and Social Justice at the Department of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School. According to United Nations Millennium Project Taskforce on Water and Sanitation, the cost to provide clean drinking water to half of the 1.1 billion who need it by the year 2015 is between $10 and $30 billion a year. Our disposable income is going to animal sweaters while men, women, and children die. Our extra cash goes toward a water purifier for our dogs while one person every 18 seconds dies because of unclean water. So we are forced to ask the difficult question, more doggie sweaters or more lives saved?
Do we still say that we don’t value dogs over people? Consider something less damning of Americans who spend more than five times as much on dogs as they do on people. Pet owners across the States call their doggies “their little girls” and refer to themselves as “Mommy” and “Daddy.” We dress them in shirts that say “Big Brother” and even send them to daycare. So elevating their status to that of a person is fine, and some may even argue of their innate worth as beings. Yet, try calling a guy a “horn-dog” and see how that pans out for you. Or call a random woman a b-tch and see how she responds. I can guarantee that in either situation we should probably not expect them to run toward us panting and wanting to be scratched behind their ears, or have them roll over to scratch their little tummies. To spend an insane amount of money on dogs while people die does not make sense, and beyond that it is murder.
Doesn’t the root of this incredible outrage over the criminal activity of Mike Vick point to some sort of illness in our society? Can we just let dogs be dogs, let cats be cats, and give men and women our place as beings made in the image of God? One ESPN reporter remarked, “If Mike Vick had shot and killed someone, there would be less public outrage, compared with what he did.” Indeed we are sick. In fact, in a completely different way, our pursuit of animal equality is as sick as what Mike Vick did.
So let’s take off our dog’s sweaters, stop carrying them around in Italian leather bags, stop calling them sons and daughters (no doubt the chagrin of our biological children), stop comparing them to beings made in the Image of God, and value and appreciate animals for what they are. They are a part of the wonderful creation that God has given to us to care for. Dogs are wonderful animals and truly can bring a smile to us when we are down, keep us company when we are lonely, and remind us of the Creator that chose to create something so wonderful. Oh - and if you are reading this with your dog, there is no need to read it aloud, because they cannot understand one word you are saying.
For the purposes of maintaining some credibility I have listed the sources from which I took the information in this blog:
Institute for Health and Social Justice at the Department of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School - Reported in the Boston Globe on July 11
American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, http://www.appma.org/default.asp
Pet Smart Stores, http://www.petsmart.com