Pet or Food?

[monk222]

“Dogs look up to you, cats look down on you. Give me a pig. He just looks
you in the eye and treats you as an equal.”

-- Winston Churchill

Roger Cohen explores the logic and ethics of the way cultures favor some
animals as pets and others for food, particularly in relation to China's
predilection for eating dogs and cats. He was in China, and when in Rome...

The meal didn't set well with him, and it makes me a little sick just reading
about it. Just remind me never to become friends with a cow or a chicken.

Comments

[agloriousday.livejournal.com]

http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/pets/2009-11-17-teacuppigs17_ST_N.htm

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Heh, I wasn't even aware there was a size problem. I didn't know they grew that big. Of course, I couldn't imagine being interested in pigs as pets regardless, but then I used to say the same thing about cats, but now I love them hard - almost right up there with dogs. Though, cats also don't seem to break ten pounds too readily.

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

Unless they are my magnificent Mr Minsky, who weighs in at thirteen pounds, absolutely none of which is fat. Indeed, Klinsmann is probably also over the ten-pound mark himself.

I have heard of cats who weigh twice as much as Minsky, but I don't know how overweight they were. One cat I know who will certainly get bigger than Minsky even if she stays slim, however, is san_valentine's beautiful Iella, who is a Norwegian Forest cat. They're a huge breed, and exceptionally friendly with it.

[agloriousday.livejournal.com]

My parents have a male ragdoll Kuzia, who is one of the largest cats I've ever seen. He's bigger than this now:

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

Wow! He's impressive. :-)

[agloriousday.livejournal.com]

I think he's at 17 lbs right now. Super intelligent and active and hilarious.

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

My kind of cat. :-)

[agloriousday.livejournal.com]

my grandparents always had a pig, and every time they'd kill one for blood sausage, salo, holodets and other types of meat dishes, they'd buy a piglet and keep it at home until it would grow big enough to be kept in the barn. Grandma would get really attached to the piglet, since it was an awesome pet, and on the day of killing the pig she'd cry. A lot. It was kind of traumatic for us kids, together with a large upside-down hanging corpse of a pig tied to two trees in the front hard, bleeding out into a buckets and into grass all day.