Thursday, January 25, 2007

Animal-Lover

I love animals. I really really do. All kinds. Every shape and size. And I married an animal lover. And my husband WORKS for an animal lover. I wish I could fill my house with pets. We have limited ourselves to one cat although Gary is lobbying for a kitten of his own. If he would let me, I'd bring home all sorts of animals from local shelters.

When I was in college, I was the Vice-President for the Students for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. I was their token meat-eater. I only eat poultry and fish. But I believe it is natural for human beings to eat meat. I have a master's in anthropology which has made me thoughtful about things like that. We are built to consume protein. And other animals eat protein as well. I think a lot of the problem comes from how we get our meat. Since our meat products are produced on a mass scale, it makes it difficult to do it humanely.

Anyway, today I was looking at PETA's website to look up a certain cosmetics company and I was surprised to see that there is an IAMS boycott going on. If you have pets, you may be familiar with IAMS. Anyway, they are evidently big animal testers. I feed Toulouse Science Diet and I'm not sure about their testing policies. I don't believe in feeding your pets vegetarian food so I am not prepared to go that route. But I definitely wanted to get the word out to boycott IAMS.

Here is more info:

http://www.iamscruelty.com/

You know, I think Dr. Seuss had a big effect on me when I was younger because two quotes always stick out in my head:

"I speak for the trees!"

and

"A person's a person no matter how small."

I feel the same way about animals.

3 comments:

Genevieve said...

I don't really understand - it's pet food, right? If they don't test it on animals before they sell it to know how it will work, who can they test it on? Or is it more a concern about the way the tests are being run?

Amy M. said...

I know what you're thinking, Vieve, but here is a quote from the website:

"Our investigator found dogs who had gone crazy from intense confinement in barren steel cages and cement cells, dogs who had been left on a filthy paint-chipped floor after chunks of muscle had been hacked from their thighs, dogs who had been surgically debarked, and horribly sick dogs and cats who were languishing in their cages, neglected and left to suffer without veterinary care."

That doesn't sound like ordinary food-testing to me.

Genevieve said...

ok, that sounds terrible. I agree, not ordinary testing conditions. So I guess more a concern for how the tests are being conducted.