Peaceful sleep

I thought I'd weigh in on the PETA trial now that a verdict has been handed down. For those of you that haven't been following this case (or live in the peaceful bubble of reality TV or, thankfully, do not watch Fox News), two PETA employees were on trial in NC last week for animal cruelty, littering, and obtaining property on false pretenses. In short, the two employees were caught behind a Bertie County Piggly Wiggly dumping the bodies of animals they had picked up from vets and shelters and had euthanized in their PETA van. Pretty much, the employees were only found guilty of littering and have to pay a fine, pay restitution, and do community service.
Now, when I first heard the story, my honest first impression was sheer confusion. I was mortified because I always thought that PETA, sometimes too radically for my blood, but always with their unwavering save-the-furries ideology, was the one organization that would always stand up for animal rights. So I assumed that these were rogue employees, right?
Then I caught wind of the somewhat biased website, PETAkillsAnimals.com that was following the trial. When I found out that the PETA employees were following the directions of their employer, I was even more confused. And on the Dogster Blog, folks were chiming in with the "I knew PETA went too far" and "they're a bunch of hypocrites" and so on.
Being the "fair and balanced" journalist that I am, I did a little searching for PETA's statements on the matter. I found it odd that they really buried their statements on their website, since when taken alone, give very reasonable and sane accounts of why they work in NC, which is very close tho their Norfolk VA headquarters. They have a picture of the old Bertie County gas chamber in which the animals used to be gassed(when not just "shot with a .22"). But again, due to the lack of national media attention to the trial, they didn't feel a need to put this in their Media Response center. So a little part of me thinks they're trying to hide the fact that they're in the business of euthanizing puppies because it's not what their celebrity superstars would find glamorous. Not like Cruelty-Free wear at New York's Fashion Week, which is today's banner splash.
While reading about the trial, I found out that one of the puppies the employees put down was also named Toby. A lot of them have names. For me, the most distressing part of the melee is the political volley between PETA and the anti-PETA folks decrying the "terrorist" group. While the meat-packers and virulently anti-PETA folks paint the general picture of "hypocrite," and everyday folks latch on to the supposedly hypocrisy of killing puppies while "forcing" us to go without leather belts, Chik Filet, and animal-tested lipstick, the focus is on whether or not what the kids did is considered "animal cruelty" or not. I personally and unpopularly do not believe that it is. If indeed the shelters are overrun, and Bertie County does not have an adoption program, and the poor animals are being gassed or frozen in their outdoor dogruns, then the humane thing to do is indeed sadly euthanize them. I personally find it upsetting that anyone with a dog from a puppy farm or even a regular breeder would cast a first stone at those trying to control the pet population. That is the real hypocrisy.
My beef (no pun intended) is with the fact that the kids got off on the False Pretenses charge. It is apparent, at least to me, that many of the folks from whom they were picking the animals were assuming that the PETA van was coming to find the animals homes, not automatically euthanizing them and putting them in the Norfolk storage freezer (which is in fact what the stated procedure is). It's on the personal level where things break down (like when folks bring puppies to shelters when they can't handle them after convincing themselves that they will for sure be adopted by a better person before their time is up).
The policies should be clearly stated. People should realize that they are bringing an animal to a shelter to be put down, plain and simple. And PETA should train its employees to know that one can't just take animals from hospitals saying you are finding the animal a home. Perhaps they are so use to "liberating" animals from labs and circuses that they get confused about the propriety of taking animals from veterinarians, telling them that they have found Toby and Happy good homes, and secretly putting them down in a van because they think they know best.

Guest post

Hey there! I thought I'd take a break and let my Momma C post. She has a list she's been working on...

20 Random Pet Peeves:

1) People-parents that don’t get pet-parents. I recently read a letter to Miss Manners (or Dear Abby) where someone took the time to complain to the columnist that her friends signed their holiday card from each “member of the family” including their dog. The advice seeker wished justification for her rage that the pet-owner “equated [their] dog to [her] children.” Miss Manners explained that this was not, in fact, what the animal folk were doing and wished that the parent wouldn’t be so sensitive. Some of us really do consider our dog a part of the family, and wish breeders no harm.
2) Incessant cell phone usage. Uh, really, do you need to be on the phone in the restaurant, in the grocery store, in the car, in the mall, in the woods, walking down the street, crossing the street, in the elevator… This peeve is directly related to…
3) Getting hijacked into someone’s little world from being subjected to her end of an insipid cell phone conversation. Has reality television really convoluted our sense of privacy to the point where folks don’t comprehend that most people around them are completely uninterested in their lives? Cell phone users seem totally oblivious to the folks in their actual physical vicinity. Your neighbors in space do not need to know about that cute guy too. Really.
4) Cashiers that don’t acknowledge your presence. There was a time in our country’s short history when customer service was king. Remember those old commercials with the gas station attendants with little paper hats? Some of us, when checking out of the grocery store, would still pay that little extra to have someone smile and say “Did you find everything that you needed?” Yet, I have, with increasing frequency, been able to go right through a check-out line without as much as a “Hey,” and, most likely, without any actual eye contact being made. Frankly, I can’t just blame this on the sorry state of customer service training. We (the collective “we” known as American consumers) actually brought this upon ourselves, as we demanded the U-Checkout Stands and e-commerce and all those wonderful other ways to speed things up and avoid human contact by all means.
5) Automated customer service telephone menus. Another victim of the Decline of Civilized Customer Service, this technology forces us to accept the loss of personal interaction as inevitable, convincing us that all of our problems can be solved through a series of vocal “Yes,” “No,” and number prompts. Since my blood pressure seems to rise dramatically every time I call one of these lines, perhaps I won’t live to see humans replaced completely.
6) Script-reading help-line technicians. I know, I know, I want it all. So you give me a human, because I bitched about the automatron. Well, give me back the robot if all you’ve got is a guy in India, asking me “yes or “no” questions while slowly scrolling through on-screen manuals. Better yet, send me the on-screen manual. OR, even better yet, make my product stable and free of gliches in the first place.
7) Telemarketers. Yup.
8) Telemarketers who, after I tell them that B. is not in, ask to speak to her husband. B. has been known to tell telemarketers, after being asked for C. and then asked “Is there a husband?,” that a husband does not exist on account of “her being a lesbian.” I wonder where that is on the “yes” / “no” script.
9) Saying something is “very unique.” Unique is unique. I can’t say I’ve never said this, but I’ll be that person that calls people out that do.
10) Inappropriately calling friends out in non-safe spaces. This requires a much longer explanation, I’m sure. I will be the first to accept someone’s constructive criticism and empowering enlightenment of hidden oppression, but sometimes certain situations call for some semblance of tact.
11) Describing something as “ironic” when, really, it’s not. This still makes the list after all these years. Ever since that damn Alanis Morrisette song, it STILL bothers me.
12) The colloquialism “Beyotch” Do I have to explain? Really?
13) The Melting Pot idea. I remember growing up in the seventies, watching Sesame Street, and feeling glad that the US was all colors of a distinct multi-cultural rainbow. Then in the eighties, I chanted along with the Schoolhouse Rock chorus, “The Great American Melt-Ing-Pot,” with its pretty swirling and whirling, not realizing that the resulting fondue was a pseudo-homogenized culture assimilated to some Dynasty-aspiring norm, a watered down version of what each of the component parts brought. To extend the spoiled dairy analogy, a well-balanced cheese plate - with a soft ripened triple creme, an aggressive blue, a tangy Trappist washed rind, and an aged boorenkaas – is more agreeable to me than a fondue or fromage forte where I can’t tell each individuals’ characteristics or origins. It’s just my preference.
14) The bootstrap theory (related somewhat to “The American Dream”). Some people claim it works. I personally think it’s flawed and more often creates…
15) Oppressed persons that oppress others in order to rise up. So, the theory goes, if you don’t succeed, then it’s your own damn fault, not the fault of systemic modes of oppression or yet-to-be surmounted historic injustices that keep folks where they are.
16) People who think they are Righteous but do not work for Justice. We once had a great Sunday School lesson with a theological scholar who broke down various Biblical texts that used the word “righteous.” On many occasions, the same root word that translates to “Justice” was used to translated to “Righteous,” such that in the case where we learn “Blessed are the Righteous,” the meaning is not so much “Blessed are the upstanding,” but rather “Blessed are the Just.” A minor nit-picky point, but a powerful one, I think.
17) Deer Ticks. Yes, the lyme disease-carrying insects you get in the forest. I was getting a little heavy handed and didactic, and, since Toby was so kind as to let me "hijack" his blog, I thought I’d throw in some pet peeves that were less conceptual, and more tangible.
18)Dandruff. I try really hard to avoid it, but I think my hair products add to the problem.
19) Unnecessary staff meetings. Again, it should go without saying.
20) Long winded blog posts. Cuz really, who has time to read that nonsense.

Blessed are the meek. Have a beautiful day.

What's in a name?

Since I have doing this for a little while now, I thought I would re-introduce why I named this site the name that I did. This is mainly for you non-dog people out there, for whom the term "buttscratch" perhaps means "the middle of nowhere."

(I am nowhere near the middle of nowhere, and love my little space in the world.)

The blog title is derived from my constant desire for buttscratches. These are, more specifically, scratches on my lower back near the base of my tail. (I will not say what they are not - this is a family site.) Again, these things don't need to be explained to dogpeople. When I wake up in the morning, I walk up to my Momma B asleep in her bed and whine until she scratches me.

I would also like to apologize for not asking Momma C. She just doesn't do it right.