As I’ve mentioned several times before, we have five adopted animals, two cats and three dogs. Lucky, the youngest of the bunch, is a four-foot long mutt who spends his days lounging in the sun and saying what’s up to all of his friends in the neighborhood during our walks. Now, imagine Lucky as I have been imagining him all day: locked in a five-foot long crate, too small to even turn around in; or crammed into cages with several other dogs, covered in his own urine and feces, with scars on his body from fights with other dogs due to the cramped conditions.
If you’re wondering why I’ve been thinking about one of our wonderful dogs in such awful situations, it’s because there are millions of animals in California who are living under those conditions, and worse. Veal calves, egg-laying hens, and mama pigs did not ask to live their lives without being able to turn around. And I’ve been thinking about what Lucky would be like if he had to live like that, because pigs are more intelligent than dogs, so I think it’s a fair comparison. Just as dogs need to sniff and mark their territory in order to be happy, pigs need to root with their snouts and wallow in mud. If Lucky was denied his basic needs as a dog from a young age, I can’t imagine how unhappy and damaged he would be.
There’s something happening in California right now that’s very important for the quality of life of this state’s millions of cage-dwelling animals. Proposition 2 is an initiative that will require all food producers with animal operations to stop using these tiny crates. Actually, this idea isn’t so radical, and as a piece of legislature, Prop 2 is pretty moderate. It doesn’t require anything extreme from producers, just a modicum of decency and respect that these animals deserve. If their ultimate end is on our plates, they shouldn’t have to live a life of squalor and misery as well.
And please don’t believe any of the hype funded by the conventional meat production industry. These corporations are spending obscene amounts of money to convince CA voters that Prop 2 will and ultimately put producers out of business. PLEASE. First of all, Prop 2 will help to support family farmers. Talk about family values! And no, Prop 2 will not make the cost of cheap supermarket meat skyrocket. There are several examples of these types of initiatives passing in the past, and they did not result in significant price increases. At most, Prop 2 will cost consumers a few extra cents per dozen eggs, or per pound of pork. (Yes on Prop 2. You can read more about it here, so prepare yourself for November 4. Let’s hold our meat producers to a higher standard of decency.
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
-Mahatma Gandhi
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