Me, my Dog and the Meat I can't Eat

I am a Vegetarian

My dog is not... that.

And thus I find myself in a familiar circumstance, ripping apart a chicken carcass with my bare hands after boiling it down into a stock for the better part of the day. An unfortunate paradox to my senses, the food I’ve sworn off dripping the last remnants of its savoury grease into my sink as my dog awaits in visible tension as I transfer the spinal meat into his food bowl.

It disturbs me, genuinely to be doing this. Not for any ambiguous “not the cute animal's reason” (although that is undeniably a motivator,) instead, I'm disturbed by my past troubles with overeating and my present method of combating those ever-latent cravings. Back in the day, I was a fried chicken fiend, a consumer of method and review, I’m embarrassed to say that as I write this I am salivating. I used to sneak off, away from my girlfriend to visit various generic fried chicken eateries, shamefully convincing myself that despite how little I thought the experience would benefit me, I would still go through with it; as if I was hiring a prostitute or smoking crack in a back alley. Luckily that's stopped but, like an addict, I know that I'm not cured of this chicken affliction, I am always one juicy crisp chicken skin away from eating brisket fat whole and shotgunning the nondescript generic gravy from a different non-fried chicken eatery.

And the other thing, that hits much much closer to my heart, is my dog waiting enthusiastically near my legs, is how The face I put to every piece of meat I see is his adorable innocently stupid little dog face. When I worked at the descript cacophony that was Toboggan Brewing company I would often, as I put it, “mortal combat” smoked chickens apart so we could use their meat for various sandwich, pizza and taco applications. However when I first got my dog and held his vulnerable puppy body in my arms on many of his scary early nights with us; I realized that the shape of his ribcage was the same size and shape of the chicken corpses I so enthusiastically ripped apart for my job.

Whenever the craving sets in I imagine his face and in my heart I know that I could never eat a creature like him unless my literal life depended on it; certainly not a creature that has been through the horrendous conditions of cheap factory farming, of which my meagre budget can afford.

And yet a smile does creep across my face as I watch him dig into his food, enriched with homemade chicken stock and boiled clean protein.

I find what some people miss when they own dogs, cats or other carnivorously inclined animals; is that despite ourselves being animals, humans have the capacity to choose and grow their own food. A dog is incapable of discerning the sourcing of its food, nor is it realistically capable of forming random attachments to pictures of cute farm animals online. If my dog was in the wild he could not farm, he could only hunt. Shackling him with my sense of morality, no matter how justified I truely feel it to be would be ridiculous. He is a dog, he has no concept of good or evil, he is just a dog doing dog things and eating the dog food that I am able to give him.

Truely I wish that we could live in a world where no one needs to churn animals through the grinder that is our consumption; where meat was regulated to hunting on gigantic nature reserves and protein was grown humanely in big vats. But until that time my dog is gonna still enjoy the occasional boiled chicken, the frequent chicken-based dry dog food and I will continue to be a Vegetarian...

Except for fish, I still eat fish.