Rabbit Advocacy Animal Matters

What’s Worse: Beating A dog Or Eating A Cow?

September 2, 2014 James McWilliams

Ironies abound in our treatment of animals. Melissa Cronin at The Dodo reported today that "The CEO of a catering giant will be stepping down after video footage revealed him kicking a doberman puppy in a Vancouver, Canada elevator.  Des Hague was the CEO of Centerplate, a $6 million company with over 350 clients, many of them major sports stadiums."

The public outrage dictating the resignation of a corporate giant--the guy's full name is Desmond Hague-- is a noteworthy display of justice for sentient creatures. One is inevitably put in the mind of Michael Vick and the remarkable public censure that enveloped him after he was busted for running a dog fighting ring in 2007. Although one should never underestimate the motivating power of simple self-righteous condemnation, I think it's safe to say that the hammer of public opinion came down on this CEO-dog abuser for the basic reason that we know causing gratuitous suffering to an animal is whacked.

Recall, though, that this man was the CEO of a catering firm, one whose menu includes every kind of animal-based product you could ever want for your event. Here's one of its menus. So, it seems only fair to ask: why wasn't this man taken to the woodshed much earlier? He was, after all, profiting from the sale of animals who were not only abused, but slaughtered so his firm could rake in millions. What some nameless and faceless low-wage worker did to those animals in an abattoir doesn't compare to this CEO's crazed outburst against his poor dog.

The fact that the vast majority of people calling for the CEO's head would have happily eaten from one of his catering menus confirms something disturbing. Not only is our moral consideration of animals arrestingly situational, but we lack the ability to disentangle context from principle. Place some salt and pepper besides a cloth napkin and fine silver, arrange the plates in a circle at a convention, bond with friends over the steak on your plate, and all is fine. Kick a dog in a lift and you’re a pile of shit. Go figure.