I shall sell any Taiwanese shares I have. I’ve lost my hitherto deep respect for the island-state’s entrepreneurial activities. Pandering to western prejudices, no more hot dogs – ie. roasted canines – are to be sold there. The ban’s chief beneficiaries will be Taipei’s stray dogs, who are now free to foul the footpaths, pass on rabies and parasites, and bite passersby. Of course pigs, cattle, and poultry, which commit no such public nuisances, will still finish up roasted, fried, boiled and barbecued.
Indeed ‘ethical treatment’ of animals has always been very selective. A chuck-and-run protestor in Manhattan once threw a can of red paint at my Brazilian friend’s fur coat. ‘Have you ever heard of them throwing paint at a Hell’s Angel’s leather jacket?’ she demanded. And I had to admit I had not. But then, neither the cattle that provided the leather, nor the Hell’s Angel wearing it, could be described as cuddly.
My co-op building in New York has a no-pets policy, which was why I was surprised to meet eyeball-to-eyeball with an Irish wolfhound in the elevator. With a saddle and bridle it could have run the Kentucky Derby – except that it was smelly; frequently nauseous and incontinent; and could hardly walk as a consequence of being cooped up in a tiny Manhattan apartment. I gather that his owners’ lawyers had him tagged as ‘an emotional support’ pet, which gave the poor beast some sort of constitutional right to pollute lobbies.
‘Hah!’ you may say. ‘Pigs will fly before any judge accepts this specious rubbish.’ However, the expansio ad absurdum came last year when a woman with heart disease persuaded TWA that she derived essential emotional support from her 300 pound pig, which was then allowed to fly with her.
As someone clearly not of sound mind, in a rational country, she would herself have been forbidden to fly. However, there is no limit to the idiocies perpetrated in the name of emotional support systems, ie pets. I found a web site touting ‘kosher for Passover’ pet foods – including kosher fish food. It made me wonder if anyone circumcises little Poochy.
In Britain I once watched in horror when a beaming pet owner admired her dog for leaving a large, solid memorial on my lawn.
I told her that if she didn’t remove it forthwith, I would deliver it through her letter-box, unwrapped. But then, in Manhattan, I watched with equal horror when I saw a man eating a hamburger with one hand while pooper scooping with the other! Even sewer workers don’t eat on the job, surely?
With such a curmudgeonly attitude to pets, you can imagine the depths of my wellsprings of sympathy when over the New Year I read that ‘Obesity in household pets is becoming an increasingly dangerous problem around the globe.’ But yes, it’s true: in a world where so many humans go to bed with an empty stomach, the latest scam is diet food for Fido and Puss-puss. And you can bet your last tasty bony treat that each and every obese emotional support system has to support a physically heavy burden as well as a heavy emotional one in the shape of obese neurotic owners.
Immediately I saw the solution. I’ve eaten antelope and alligators in New York, barbecued Bambi in Vienna, horses in France and Central Asia, snakes in East Asia and only last night dined on a lobster which, when you think about it, looks as if it escaped from Star Wars. Indeed I once nibbled on chocolate-coated ants. It’s all a question of taste – and health. (Though nothing, nowhere, can excite my revulsion like boiled vegetables.)
In fact, as far as I know, dogs and cats, just like the assorted edible fauna I menued above, are low in cholesterol and, if well cooked, are quite healthy. The news reports from Taiwan were silent on the fate of the country’s cats, but one can only fear the worst. A ban on eating Pussy follows naturally from an edict against feeding on Fido. Taiwan will be the poorer for it!
By feeding pets to their owners, we do them both a favor. It puts the overweight emotional supporter out of its misery, and helps the owner reduce weight with a high-protein, low-cholesterol diet. The reduction in the number of dog bites and various pet-carried parasites and infections would slash healthcare costs, and maybe even taxes.
Petlessness also invites the owners to get a life. Freed of the tyranny of cat litter cleaning and dog walking, they can go on vacation, thus boosting the travel and leisure industry and providing the Keynesian impulse that the US economy, dogged by Greenspan’s paranoia about inflation, needs.
The problem with pet rocks was they were never properly branded so had little value added, even if their IQs were higher than some of the stupid little mutts I’ve seen being toted around. Sony has shown the way – with employment, trade and wealth generating electronic dogs. In the new era, healthy owners will be able to kiss pussies and puppies alike with no health risk except electric shock from the occasional short circuit. I am, of course, working on an integrated IPO for a company that incorporates all these features: e-kennel.com. Watch this space.
