Hachiko, Euthanizing and Dog meat in China

I am trying to relate few events and news that I experienced and read about during the last few weeks in this post. (Note: I am not trying to blame all the great people out there who really love their pets and take care of them.)

Few weeks ago I watched this sad movie (based on a true story) about Hachiko. There are lots of more stories like this regarding the loyalty and bravery of dogs helping their two legged masters. When I look at those I think Hachiko lives in all dogs although he is exceptional.

Towards to the ends of the semesters I have seen several advertisements in the local classifieds in the following general theme.

"Need to find a home for my pet dog. He is ... months old ... ... I am graduating soon .... so have to move to some other place, cannot take him with me... ... if i cannot find a good place for my sweet puppy I have to put him to sleep :((( "

This is something I cannot really understand. When coming to college or graduate school anybody know that it will be only few years that they going to stay there. So why do someone buy a pet when he/she knows that it is temporary thing? I think people who do this are really selfish.

After seen the above, I did a bit of search on this whole business of "Euthenizing". For my amazement it is not only used for astray animals it is used for old and sick animals who have homes too. The marketting goes like this " you can end the suffering of your beloved pet (now old or sick) in "humane" way by injecting a lethal chemical". They also claim that it is painless (not sure who check whether it is painless or not) and very fast too. Also they allow owners to spend some time with the dead dogs body for "humane" purposes.

Now the question is: Do they allow to do this for humans? I mean stop their suffering by killing them? Why do we have hospitals for sick and elderly people then? Every living thing like to live. The dogs will not ask you to euthanize but people so selfish (from my point of view) use it as an excuse to get rid of their pets. When you get a pet, you enjoy seen it grow and living with it, Then you have an obligation to help it with his old age as well. This is different to throwing your old TV to dustbin and buying a new one.

To make it more disturbing today I saw this news about the cat and dog meat market in China.
It might be the case in the past that Chinese people have nothing to eat and end up eating cats and dogs, but I am pretty sure that history of China has long gone. Now what is the justification of eating an animal who change their genes to live with humans thousands years ago.

One can argue that any animal can be a pet like fish or a rooster and then eating them is also bad. In a way it is a valid argument and I don't argue with them, but I haven't seen or read about any other animal who dial 911 to save the life of its master or fight with a deadly snake to protect the family knowing that it could end its life.

Overall, I think we all need to learn from Hachiko!