03 March 2009

Throwing Rocks at Dogs.

If I were in charge of *all* household purchases, my children would not be snorting and guffawing their way through "Looney Tunes" episodes. Have you seen these lately? I can admit to laughing my way through an occasional episode, but every now and then I just can't watch as that poor coyote gets sent over the cliff again, or hit by a truck again, or Elmer Fudd gets shot again.

Can you just imagine how PETA would react to these cartoons if they were to come out today? Let's pretend the coyote is endangered, too, just for the fun of it.

It's different to hear about cruelty to a real animal. And yet I read stories like this and can understand the disdain for dogs in other nations. Could you imagine large numbers of wild animals roaming the streets where you live? Animals that truly could be a threat to human life?

I've also heard horrible things about dog-killings in China. I haven't made up my mind whether the story I just read puts that into perspective, as I don't remember hearing about dog attacks and rabies. Or maybe I'm just kinda biased against the Chinese government because of all that killing of infants and stuff they do... my bad.

6 comments:

  1. There were mongrel dogs all over Port-Au-Prince. The kids at the orphanage are terrified of them. In fact, when I went down to Haiti the first time, another prospective adoptive mom asked if I had room for a small gift for her son. How to say no? Well, she sent a stuffed dog. The color had a photo tag with their family. The little boy wanted nothing to do with it. The big boys wanted to take it and shove it in the face of little children while barking. Bratty behavior is a worldwide problem.

    My kids are still not too keen on dogs. David is a little braver than Beverly though.

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  2. Recently I looked into the availability of some Looney Toons episodes that I enjoyed as a kid and have found that some of the most well-known ones are now banned. Apparently Speedy Gonzales is seen as racist by some. There are other "problematic" ones too that have been banned.

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  3. Catherine, I'm not sure which ones you're talking about with Speedy. Most of the ones I saw with Speedy would actually make more fun of the Gringo Gato, Sylvester LOL.

    Is Pepe Le Pew anti-French propaganda? Sigh.

    But then I'd see some of the tribal stuff or Bugs dressed like an Indian and telling people heap big ugh stuff and go, wow.

    Patrick thinks Bugs is gay because he dresses up like a girl every chance he gets.

    What to say to that????

    Julie, I had to laugh at your story and wonder what happened to that stuffed doggie. LOL

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  4. You know I've thought the same thing about old favorite cartoons and have considered searching this on the internet for curiosity

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  5. I never liked cartoons. I just never found them all that funny & felt sorry for the coyote or Sylvester [& I loahed Tweety, so full of himself :)] & I might agree with Parick about Bugs. As for rabid dogs ¬ well you never want to be bitten by a rabid animal. The treatment's no fun either.

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  6. I live in the third world, and the mongrel dogs are relatively innocuous during the day. But at night they can run wild in packs, howling like wolves. I'd hate to be a street person, caught out at night by a pack of wild dogs.

    Furthermore, years ago, when I visited the older part of Kathmandu (it was attached to Kathmandu and had a different name, but I don't recall the name), it was positively medeival. It was pointed out to me that most of the houses even then had no toilets at all. People would come out at night and "do their business" (solid) on the sidewalks. This solid would be consumed by wild dogs. Finding out this was true, and subsequently living in the Arab Third World, and finding that wild dogs will consume solid waste (it does still contain nutriients), I can finally understand why Muslims consider dogs to be "dirty." We never see this behavior in America with all the dogs being clean and well-fed, as there is no need for them to resort to this.

    In India (at least in Goa) pigs were kept in an enclosure underneath an outdoor "toilet" hole on a second floor. The solid wastes which fell down were gobbled up by the pig. After I found out this, I see again why Muslims consider pigs to be dirty as well. I used to wonder where they got such an idea, aside from religious prohibition, of course.

    Regards,
    Expat 21

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Non-troll comments always welcome! :)

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