Animal cruelty

Reading this article made me sick to my stomach:

A controversial procedure performed on dogs and cats known as devocalization or debarking has upset animal lovers, who are now pushing to have the surgery outlawed.

Debarking involves surgically removing an animal’s vocal cords to reduce the sound of the animal’s vocalizations.

“I don’t think it’s the right thing to do,” Susan Rawson told WVIT. Her adopted 11-year-old Collie, a former show dog, was devocalized by his previous owner.

“It’s like declawing cats, or taking the voice box out of a baby,” she added. “That’s how they communicate, that’s how they talk. So I think it’s very cruel.”

Massachusetts and New Jersey are the only states to have banned the surgery, which critics decry as mutilation for the convenience for pet owners.

[…] The procedure is banned under the European Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals. The United Kingdom has also outlawed the surgery.

I cannot imagine somebody doing this to a dog simply because they can’t stand the loudness of their barking.  We have two dogs and one of them tends to “over bark,” but that’s her voice, that’s who she is, and there’s always a reason for it, whether we might find it agreeable or not!!

Even comparing this to declawing a cat is way off, because a dog’s vocal cords are used by him to communicate, like a cat’s meow.

It’s just disgusts me to think of the things people will lower themselves to do to the poor creatures they portend to love and protect.

Here’s a video report in which you can see the end result of this inhumane surgery: