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I think everyone is overreacting to this guy's post. First I'd like to state that the circumstances of this particular crime remove it from my example, and what this guy did was both criminal and morally reprehensible. I also think the point wasn't stated in the best way.
Still, we tend to set up strange artificial divisions that exist only in our minds when it comes to things like dogs. People kill their dogs all the time. Many of you probably have. I have, I just paid someone else to do it. Walking a dog into the woods to be shot is no differnt than taking it to the vet to be killed. Paying someone to kill is the same as killing yourself and you can't really argue that one is any more painless than the other. Same thing with buying chicken versus wringing a chicken's neck. We're so far removed from our roots that we've set up a differentiation based on whether or not you have to wash your hands. We've even created little niceties around the process like using the term "put to sleep" instead of "executed".
If this guy was a farmer who had 2 cows, he could kill them for any reason whatsoever and no one would bat an eye. The fact that dogs are cute and affectionate towards people is what makes all the difference here. They are both animals, there really isn't much difference academically.
If this guy had done nothing more than omitted the whole hanging thing, I doubt there is much anyone could do. You are allowed to kill your animals, and shooting one in the head is about as painless as it gets.
I saw a cow killed once for beef on a small farm. Not pretty, and I can't imagine it was better than what this wacko did to his dogs.
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