Читать книгу Diet for a New America 25th Anniversary Edition - John Robbins - Страница 27

There are so many instances in which animals have demonstrated profound intelligence that, frankly, I wonder sometimes about the intelligence of the people who insist that animals are dumb. Everyone has heard tales of dogs traveling great distances across unknown terrain to rejoin their people. What you might not know, however, is that many of these stories are documented, verified, and, incredible as they seem, literally true.

For example, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Martin moved from Des Moines to Denver. But their German shepherd, Max, evidently preferred Des Moines, because he went back on his own, a distance of 750 snow-covered miles.⁴⁴

Another German shepherd, living in Italy, missed his human companion, who had recently moved from Brindisi to Milan and left the animal behind. It took the dog four months to cover the 745 miles, but he managed to do it and found his person to boot.⁴⁵

Even more remarkable is a shorter journey of “only” 200 miles, described by Sheila Burnford in her book The Incredible Journey. Three animals—an old English bull terrier, a young Labrador retriever, and, believe it or not, a Siamese cat—stayed together, took care of each other, and found their way across 200 miles of rugged Canadian wilderness in northwestern Ontario.⁴⁶

I would never have thought a cat capable of such a feat. But I was wrong. There are actually many documented and verified accounts of cats traveling great distances to be with their people. The longest I know of is also one of the best authenticated. It concerns a New York veterinarian who moved to a new job and house in California and had to leave his cat behind, expecting to send for him later. But the cat disappeared prematurely, so the doctor understandably assumed he had seen the last of his cat. Five months later, however, the cat “calmly walked into the (new) house, and jumped onto its favorite armchair.” As you might imagine, the vet was startled. For a moment, he was so shocked he just stood there, gaping. Was this his cat? Then he remembered that his cat had once been in a bad fight, in which its tail had been bitten. The injury had left a distinct growth on the fourth vertebra of the cat’s tail. Remembering this, the vet walked over to the cat and felt its tail. Sure enough, there, on the fourth vertebra, was the telltale growth!⁴⁷

We may surely be justified in considering the possibility that animals have access to a kind of intelligence beyond our comprehension. It is hard to attribute such accomplishments to mere instinct.

Animals are interesting creatures…

with their own unique kinds of intelligence and beauty…

When treated well, most kinds of animals are friendly to people…

Pigs are as capable of friendship with us as dogs and cats…

But the animals raised for meat, eggs, and dairy products in the United States today…

are treated terribly…

Chickens are crammed into cages so tightly they can barely move and are driven insane…

From below, the view is nothing to put on a picture postcard.

When treated well, pigs are remarkably happy…

and friendly creatures…

But today they are crammed together so tightly that they go crazy…

and often bite one another’s tails and rears, even killing one another…

When you realize what friendly and intelligent animals pigs are by nature…

it’s terribly sad to see the desolate lives they are forced to live today, treated like cars in a parking lot…

From childhood on they are treated like merchandise…

with no respect for the fact that they are living beings…

Yesterday’s cows spent their whole lives grazing happily in pastures…

but today this is no longer the case…

The love and bonding between mother cows and their calves…

is strong and deep…

But today’s veal calves are taken away from their mothers as soon as they are born…

and forced to live their entire lives in unspeakably miserable conditions…

These are little babies, separated from their mothers, and they desperately seek anything to suck on…

But they are never allowed to suck, and instead are fed a diet deliberately designed to make them anemic. Anyone who treated a dog or cat the way millions of baby veal calves are treated today would be arrested…

We prefer to numb ourselves psychically to the fact of the slaughterhouse. We don’t like to remember that a hamburger is a ground-up cow…

In fact, some people evidently think chickens are vegetables. When someone says, “I’m a vegetarian,” these people say, “Yes, but you do eat chicken, don’t you?”

The author of Diet for a New America, John Robbins shows us how our health, our happiness, and the future of life on earth depend on our shifting to a compassionate way of eating.