real intelligence Cares … (05/11/13)
“When I was working with the monkeys, I used to look at them and say: ‘If you were a pig, you would have this figured out by now.'” ~ biologist Tina Widowski
Anyone who has the courage to even briefly glance to the hypocritical double-standard between the way we treat our pets and the way we treat our “future bacon” simply has to feel deeply unsettled by it, and one of the first statements many make to rationalize such blatant bigotry is that “dogs are smarter than pigs”.
Of course, the reality of the matter simply doesn’t support this claim …
Pigs are among the quickest of all animals to learn new routines, know & respond to their names by 2 to 3 weeks of age, have excellent memories, can perform a large array of tricks on command, can play video games using joysticks, and yes — like in the movie “Babe”, pigs CAN even herd sheep. In fact, pigs rank in the top 5 in animal intelligence — consistently behind only the chimpanzee, the dolphin and the elephant, and always ahead the dog.
Pigs can dream, are exceptionally clean (one of the many reasons that they become visibly depressed when confined in farm pens strewn with their own excrement), and are extremely picky eaters. Pigs also have a long, consistent history of assisting or even saving the lives of their human owners, as well as of ingeniously escaping from slaughterhouses or slaughterhouse-bound trucks.
Most importantly, pigs are kind & loving towards their young, form very close emotional bonds with each other as well as members of other species, and have demonstrated a clear ability to act compassionately towards others.
The point of this little expose is quite the simple one: even the dumbest pig in the world is smart enough to understand imprisonment, to yearn to be treated with respect, to suffer when tortured, to feel pain and to fear death. No dog-owner (sadistic dog-fight advocates excluded) could ever imagine putting his or her beloved pet through even one tenth of the anguish that 99% of all pigs endure before they become your breakfast bacon. As such, it is impossible to not be a hypocrite if you Love your dog but still choose to eat pork.
It’s true that each of us alone can do little to stop the mass torture and needless slaughter of these truly brilliant animals, AND YET the question before us all is not will we try to do what we cannot hope to accomplish, but rather will you simply do what you can?
And one thing that you can ALL do to help is to STOP EATING PIGS, and to stop eating them today … Thank you.
“The question is not ‘Can they reason? nor ‘Can they talk?’, but rather ‘Can they suffer?'” ~ Jeremy Bentham
“There’s always times I have to shake my head and think I can’t believe this is in front of me,” he said. “But we have to change ourselves first if we expect there to be change around us.” ~ Pete (undercover animal rights investigator)
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