AR-News: (US TN) Redefining your pet's role and your role as its 'guardian'

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

By STACY SMITH SEGOVIA
The Leaf-Chronicle 




Do you own your pet? Guard it? Or simply keep it company? 
Such is the question Jon Katz blasted as ridiculous in an article he wrote 
last month. The author of "The New Work of Dogs: Tending to Love, Life and 
Family," Katz says making a fuss about what people call themselves in relation to 
their pets -- owners, guardians, or companions -- is futile. 
Katz wrote the article (see full text at www.slate.msn.com/ id/2096577/) in 
response to a letter he received from In Defense of Animals, a California-based 
animal rights organization. The letter requested that in his future books, 
Katz refer to people as "guardians" rather than "owners" of their pets. 
Founded by a veterinarian, Dr. Elliot Katz, no relation to Jon Katz, in 1983, 
IDA describes itself as "an international animal protection organization 
dedicated to ending the exploitation and abuse of animals by raising the status of 
animals beyond that of mere property, and by defending their rights, welfare 
and habitat." 
Dr. Katz, who leads the fight against laboratory testing, neglectful puppy 
mills and other cruel treatment of animals, believes changing how we speak will 
change how we act. 




full story:

http://www.theleafchronicle.com/news/stories/20040418/localnews/206400.html


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"True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to fore only 
when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test 
(which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those 
who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a 
fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it." 

Milo Kundera 
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