I have this dog now. She's a "rescue" so to speak - rescued from being tied to a tree at my friend's abandoned house. I'm trying to find her a home and have been for a while. She's a sweet dog, but the years of neglect have made an impact (that I'm trying to reverse).
But anyway (I'm having a Carrie Bradshaw moment), it got me thinking as I was surfing the net, looking for adoption agencies: What is the line that separates a human's right to live from any other animal's? I read that 85% of puppies that get surrendered to adoption agencies and/or pounds end up euthanized. That's a lot of dead puppies.
But why is that the end result? When people do that to other people, we call it genocide and it usually results in some sort of warfare.
So dogs and people. Cats and people. Obvious differences. But where is the line between anthropomorphism and disregarding that animal's right to an existence? I know the Christian perspective would be that human souls are divine in nature, but I struggle with this one a little. There are many humans I can bring to mind this minute that I truly don't think ever had a right to live and honestly, I don't think every human life is precious. I don't really feel that way about any animal I can think of. Animals usually do harmful things to people because of human error. But humans also do harmful things to other humans and animals... because of human error.
But alas, it's the animals that suffer.
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You ever notice it is the defenseless who are so easily expendable; Children, the elderly, and animals. I have always believed two things; 1. Animals have souls. Anything capable of such unconditional love HAS a soul. 2. There is a special, more tortuous hell for those that are cruel to these defenseless.
I believe that too, both of those things. I've actually grown fond of this big lug of a dog. I might end up keeping her for a while. Every time I look in those eyes and think about what she went through, I get all choked up. I can't think of her being put in that situation again.
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