A Bad Week For Dogs

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I was going to make the NYE entry the last one before the Bar. However.
Earlier this week, I saw a post on FB about a dog who'd had a firecracker placed in his mouth and his mouth taped shut. Not one to believe everything I see online, I looked it up on snopes. It turns out that not only is that story true, but the dog wandered around Bosnia for five days with no mouth with which to eat, and the wound became infested. Eventually, he was brought in, doctors were unable to conduct reconstructive surgery, and he was euthanized.

Earlier this week, an out of work soap star bowed to pressure from his hoa, euthanized his pit bull, then killed himself.

I am reminded of dogs being starved in pits in Romania, of children torturing dogs as entertainment in Rahat, of Japan's dolphin hunt, and on a less specist note, of Brazilian death squads and Jamaican mobs. Then I'm reminded of cats and mice, of orca and penguins, of wolf packs hunting, food animals everywhere, and on and on and on. The former examples are worse, of course, because there's absolutely nothing on the other side of the scale. At least the latter result in one creature not suffering, even at the expense of another.

But it's all revolting. I am livid that, even allowing for necessities of consumption, suffering and brutality are literally under every rock, in every corner of the world. I am livid with the universe for establishing such a system in which suffering is essential and sadism the norm. Livid with myself, that for all of my disgust, I am genetically programmed to resort to that same brutality but for the luxury of civilization. It doesn't seem fair that I sit here in a comfortable bubble while these things are happening everywhere. I get dizzy, my head feels swollen, and even smiling makes my face ache. Eventually I have to stop thinking about these things so I can keep functioning.

Fuck you, nature.

On a less upsetting note, here's a Staffordshire Terrier wearing a sweater.