Under Your Skin

Two articles and two issues. The first article is from the Telegraph and is about a new requirement that EVERY dog in England be chipped. Microchips for all dogs to hold owners to account Here is a quote from the article, “Surely anyone who cannot control their dog should not have one,” he said. The "he" was a Lord Renton and the where is England.

Now I had been told that in Australia, rather than license the dog, the person has to get a license to own a dog. What I did not know is that most areas limit you to two dogs and two cats. Oh, and they all have to be spayed or neutered. Now the claim is that viscous dogs need to be monitored; but, why would all the cats need to be chipped? Also, wouldn't it be enough to just neuter all the male animals? I mean if you neuter all the males, they still cannot breed. Not long ago an Australian politician called for paying girls to get fixed. I didn't think that Australia was overcrowded because it is NOT overcrowded.

In China they simplified it in two ways. Firstly, you cannot own more than one dog and secondly, at least in the downtown Luwan District in Shanghai, you have to go to a public hearing and get your neighbors approval to own a dog and if anyone doesn't approve then you cannot own a dog. What is the deal with these crazy dog laws?

There are some crazy laws out there regarding animals, especially dogs. In Sweden they have a law that you have to visit your dog at least twice a day; but, unless it has changed it is still legal to have sex with a dog. There are a few countries that have not allowed having sex with animals; but, many of them require that your dog be spayed or neutered. What is the real issue. Oh, in Canada it is illegal to own a pit bull and a few other breeds.

What is it about dogs that governments hate but people love? They love us back; but, that cannot be it. Oh, I know, they will protect us with their lives. Yes, that is it, they would die for us. My little dog wouldn't even think about it, heck, he won't let anyone in my room when I am asleep, he flips out. I read this article from a Russian site about a particular breed and how it had been labeled dangerous. The author flipped because apparently the breed is known for not being wild; but, protective perhaps. Hmmm.

They have told us in the United States that we should chip our dogs for their protection. The chip doesn't work like a transformer as far a I know. They also require people to spay or neuter their dogs in most places. If your dog is fixed then surely chipping it does nothing to prevent it from breeding. Oh, it is in case our dogs run away; but, why. If the dog is neutered or spayed it will not be breeding wild packs of dogs that are also spayed and neutered.

I love my dog, heck, I love dogs. Dogs think the world of us. My dog still cries sometimes when I go to work. I have been told that it is quite pitiful. The darn dog sleeps in the bed with me every night and never leaves my side if I am in the house, not even to eat until he cannot stand it and sometimes not even then. If I walk outside and the dog is not on a leash, it doesn't really matter because he won't walk five feet from me (he is always on a leash outside anyways).

I don't trust people who don't like dogs. I mean I understand people who are afraid of dogs especially if they had been bit, that is a reasonable response; but, that is not what I am talking about. I am talking about people who just don't like dogs. It has been my experience that dogs usually don't like them. I have also found that they people who don't like dogs usually have something to hide or a certain kind of cruelness to their nature.

There are some dogs that can actually smell cancer in their masters. I have no idea how many peoples lives have been saved by their dogs and under any circumstance that you can imagine, dogs don't care if their master is at risk no price is to great. You may have seen that picture a few weeks back and the story about the dog who a soldier had in a war zone, the soldier returned and died and when they buried him the dog stayed at the grave. They love us even once we are gone.

So what is behind all this dog shenanigans? Aside from the fact that England really doesn't have a dog problem (they put down about 6,000 a year in a country where they have 8.3 million), why should you need to chip every dog, they already have licenses attached to them.

If you could pull up a satellite image of every chip in every dog in the world, you would know where there masters were and the owners information, including their name, address and whatever other information they keep on owners. Just think, all the technology needed to track people who were chipped has already been tested on dogs.