Cyndi's Two Cents

Animal rights extremes

Commentary.

I’ve read several articles about the growing number of cities that have animal offender registries. Tennessee is the only state to have this sort of registry, but several cities and counties across these United States have laws on the books creating registries that will publicly reveal the names of known animal offenders in the area.

Let me make this clear – people who mistreat animals are bad actors. It drives me bananas when people dump their litter of kittens or mutt pups on a country road, but I don’t think that’s as bad as participating in any way in the blood sport of dog fighting.

The thing that bothers me more than anything about this animal offender registry law is that in every single article I’ve read, it is compared to one that registers all sex offenders in an area. As bad as I think it is to raise dogs to fight with other dogs, I see no comparison to the level of evil of a rapist or a pedophile. I am suspicious of anyone who would make such a comparison.

The animal offender registry law in Tennessee clearly defines an animal as a companion animal – specifically a dog or cat – and not livestock. But it is easy for the population not actively engaged in animal agriculture to blur the lines between pets and meat animals. For others, the line is blurred between pets, meat animals and humans.

A little over a month ago, Brownfield’s Ken Anderson interviewed a spokesman from Domino’s Pizza about the company’s decision to ignore the animal rights extremists who have successfully pressured many of the top food companies and restaurant chains to adopt stricter animal welfare policies, such as cage-free eggs and gestation stall-free pork.

Tim McIntyre with Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Domino’s Pizza told Brownfield their philosophy is simple: Farmers know best.

“We will never tell a farmer how to farm. We will never tell a rancher how to raise his or her animals,” McIntyre says. “What we believe is they’re the experts. They have the most vested interest in raising their livestock. It’s not just a job, we recognize that. It’s a life and we appreciate that-and we’re not afraid to stand up and say it.”

Even though the “extremists”, as McIntyre calls them, have pushed hard, he says Domino’s will not cave.

“Over the years, because we have taken the tact of what I’ll call ‘leaning into the punch’-and we’ve taken the punch and sometimes we punch back-we’ve been lucky enough to see that the extremists will go away when they realize that we are not going to cave,” he says.

“The best answer is to be deaf. To not hear them, to not respond, to not give them a platform. The biggest mistake we make is believing that they are reasonable people. We’ve learned they’re not. That’s why they’re called extremists.”

Needless to say, we’ve received a lot of feedback in reaction to McIntyre’s comments. Most of that feedback is from those opposed to animal agriculture. They are organized and quick to respond. Perhaps that is one of the strengths that has helped them garner such success in wearing down so many restaurant chains and food companies.