Pampered pets preferred over suffering poor

• Source: Global Times
• [21:30 March 11 2010]
• Comments

And two years later, the man behind the bill, British MP Richard Martin founded the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (now the RSPCA after receiving royal patronage), the first ever animal protection organization.

But nowadays animal rights in the West are, at best, overstretched. To some extent, even a fly is supposed to be protected and high-profile challengers, such as US President Barack Obama who killed one with his hands in front of a TV camera last year, are often criticized.

Take New York, the world's pet capital where the population of dogs dwarfs that of children (1.7 million versus 1.6 million, to be exact). More than 40,000 pets end up homeless every year and the city's only official animal shelter is overwhelmed and has to euthanize some "tenants" to keep room for the newcomers.

At the same time, some pets are coddled to an amazing extent. For health, they can get nutritional counseling, nerve therapies, or even acupuncture. For appearance, they have hair salons, pedicures and fashion designers. For sports and entertainment, there are dog swimming and yoga lessons, massage, parties and festivals.

The bow-wows also created a new specialty within some law firms. So-called dog lawyers help prospective tenants get their dogs into no-pet apartments, or ensure a deceased owner's property can be passed to his dog.

In a city where celebrities like gossip columnist Cindy Adams are quoted as saying she would go under the wheels of a speeding truck for her dog, and the late hotel tycoon Leona Helmsley left her dog Trouble $12 million when she died in 2007, you can see why eating dog and cat meat is a taboo. The day when the four-legged rule the city may not be too far away.

This stirs jealousy from the human world. Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, a major charity focusing on feeding the homeless and poor, told me when he heard about Trouble's fortune, he wished he could eat her food.

The petite pooch's assets equal the amount the city government spends on feeding hungry people for the entire year, or the annual salaries for 800 workers working on the minimum wage, or the budget for Berg's organization for 12 years.

Let's hope animal protectionists in China won't get as barking mad.

The author is a New York-based journalist. rong_xiaoqing@ hotmail.com