It is both cruel and evil
A dog is meant to behave like a dog, its an animal, and some breeds are genetically wild and aggressive. If you cannot contain their nature don't breed them, don't own them.
You are castrating a dog for being a dog
Its like castrating a person for behaving like a person.

Some people even neuter animals for population control. Do we castrate humans despite that our population is beginning to threaten the earth? Stick condoms on the animals dicks if you don't want them to breed!!!
How would you feel if you imaging you are castrated? If its not good why do you pretend its alright to neuter a dog? Because dogs can't speak and protest?

Its cruel, evil and should be banned worldwide

Compulsory Sterilisation on humans (including for reasons of population control)

It is both cruel and evil

It certainly is evil, but which is more evil?

Deliberately breeding dogs into an unnatural, super-aggressive race and training them to attack and harm humans (and... letting them do it, the dog can't even help it, it is what you breeded and trained it to be) on the one hand side. Neutering them to somehow keep them "kinda normal" and less aggressive on the other hand side. So maybe they don't attack a person every week and are being put to death because they are deemed a danger to society.

I'm strongly inclined to say neutering is the lesser evil.

Its like castrating a person for behaving like a person.

Note that we are doing that exact same thing with humans. Though not for, but in order to behave like a person, of sorts. Only just, we do it with medicaments, not with the knife.

There exist people who are a danger to others. You have two options: kill them, or lock them away. You don't do that to punish them for what they are or what they have done, or because you hate them. You do it because that way they cannot harm others.

But in some cases (for example, a certain class of sexual offenders) it is possible to compel them into taking a medication that will disable them. This is done, and as long as it works (as long as the medication is taken) it's a good thing. Good, in relative terms. It is a better approach than sending them to the gas chamber.

Treatment of a variety of other psychiatric disorders very much goes in the same direction. You can force people to take a medication that will "help" them (more often than not, "help" means "disable"), or you can lock them away, or kill them, drill holes in their skulls, and fry their brains with electro shocks -- all of that has been done in the past.

Which one is more evil?

Now as for a weapon I'm thinking a 21000 volt micro wave oven capacitor may make a perfect weapon, not on any bad list it just an electrical part.

Erm.... yeah. I definitively want to have that in my trouser pocket, especially in Australia where it's nice and warm and where I'll be sweating.

Hey, I heard carrying around a block of elementary sodium in your trouser pocket is a bombing good idea, too.

Do kettles often attack people in Australia? huh.png

I wouldn't know. I mentioned kettle because this thing is used to take out kettle when they're being slaughtered. As in pazipppp... drops dead.

My point is, there's nothing short of a flamethrower which you could carry to stop a pitbull, and even then you would need to see it coming from 10-15 meters away. It's not realistic to expect being attacked out of the blue and do anything that will stop the animal. If you are being charged, you will be bitten.

If you think you can fire a pistol at a charging pitbull and -- assuming are hitting at all -- it will stop, then you will find out that you are mistaken. Replace pistol with pepper spray or what you want.

It is however, realistic to expect the animal biting into your leg and not releasing for 5 minutes, gnawing and gnawing. This is an rather uncomfortable problem for the legitimate owner of said leg. It is however, a situation that can very quickly, within an instant, be solved: pazippppp... and you have your leg back, almost as good as new. Well, nearly.

Now of course, to bring this all in proportion, let me count together how often I've been pitbulled during the last five decades. That would be... hum... zero times.

Those kind of incidents happened sometime ago where the owner was forced to neuter their dog to make it less agressive. That's the most cruel thing ever to do to an animal

No it isn't. There are far, far crueller things.

Plus, an animal is not a person.

I wouldn't know. I mentioned kettle because this thing is used to take out kettle when they're being slaughtered. As in pazipppp... drops dead.

I think you mean "cattle"

Not much meat on a kettle, and they are usually pretty harmless and unaggressive :)

I think you mean "cattle"
Not much meat on a kettle, and they are usually pretty harmless and unaggressive :)

I wouldn't know. I mentioned kettle because this thing is used to take out kettle when they're being slaughtered. As in pazipppp... drops dead.

I think you mean "cattle"

Not much meat on a kettle, and they are usually pretty harmless and unaggressive

I see you've never had one jump out of an over stuffed cupboard at you... Dangerous and tricky creatures those kettles are.

It's neither cruel or evil, it's being responsible for your pet. You say "if you cannot contain their nature don't breed them, don't own them", well we can by neutering.

This is akin to brute force containment

There are already far too many stray dogs and cats in the world, are you really justifying the creation of yet more out of some misguided idea of what's cruel?

There are other humane ways of preventing dogs and cats from breeding, it seems you skipped the lines and posts that made my arguments.

No it isn't. There are far, far crueller things.

Plus, an animal is not a person.

This is mainly an excuse, so you pick and choose when to be humane with an animal

Note that we are doing that exact same thing with humans. Though not for, but in order to behave like a person, of sorts. Only just, we do it with medicaments, not with the knife.
There exist people who are a danger to others

No. If a wild dog breed behaves like a dog then we judge it with human standard and say its a danger to people. A violent criminal/sex offender is not behaving as a normal human otherwise majority of people would be violent criminal/sex offenders.

But dogs (and specific breeds) would always have unpredictable wild instincts

Hodgman's post has made the best case so far, the rest of the posts for neutering seems to have the attitude, well we humans don't want them to breed and we just have to cut their dicks off, after all, they are fucking dogs, they should deal with it.

Even with Hodgman's post that he observed his neutered dog as happy as his non-neutered dog and the neutered less stressed during mating season, I still have strong reservations one of which is he seem to be referring to specific breeds. Will post more on my reservations when i get some time

There are other humane ways of preventing dogs and cats from breeding,

To be fair, what should be banned worldwide is giving humans the right to own pets. We pretend we know them, we dont..Our communication with them is mediocre. Just because they happier with us than in the streets or in a cage waiting to be sold doesnt make the whole thing right...I have pets, Id die and kill for them, but its pretty obvious that we should stop the whole thing.. (not taking pets away from ppl, but stop selling and reproducing, till they vanish)

Theres so many wrong things..Lets talk about the unnecessary shots they take just because..."why not, its not harmfull"

Lets talk about the fact they eat totally tasteless food, while they can smell our food better than we can even taste it, its torture.. Do you know the only reason ppl shouldnt eat dogs food is because the quality control on those are lame?

Lets talk about the fact they dont like to demonstrate suffering, its theyr weapon. This comes specially obvious with tooth decay. With by the way, 99% of pet owners fails to take care of dogs teeth. (Which btw again, should be brush as much as ours)

Lets talk about the fact we dont have the slightest interest in taking care of them, which is why we take them to those pet shops, where we dont give a shit and cant know what the hell happens there.. (Ive switched a million times of petshops, bruises, cuts, etc...today I give shower to my yorkshire myself, Im afraid they will kill him, his small and old). I mean, you think the guys at the pet shop manage to clean so many dogs a day cause they skilled fast or cause they dont give a fuck?)

Lets face it, most ppl dont even have the time to care.

Add to that the amount of ppl who are simple too stupid to have pets but still have them..cause nobody gives a fuck about that either.

Im not even going to talk about pets that are kept on cages like birds and mouses...thats plain awful..(not that cutting bird wings so he doesnt escape is much better)

Castrating is awfull, its like operating dogs vocal coords so they stop barfing (oh yeah, ppl really do that btw), but its necessary..cause the whole thing is fucked up. It would get worst without castration.

So basically this thread has reduced itself to the PETA arguments?

It seems this is going to go one of two ways:

Option 1: Humans (currently) run this planet, humans have domesticated dogs and other species, and humans engage in animal husbandry. This includes population controls and health choices for animals under their care.

Option 2: Animals of the world exist and manage themselves for their own reasons, and it is not ethical to interact with them in any way beyond observation. Care for the animals can be done, but only so far as it does not harm other animals or remove them from their natural habitats.

While I can understand the thinking behind option 2, I've seen enough of the world to know that life means death. Only plants and a few microscopic creatures can live without destroying other life. But when it comes to macroscopic animals, all animals live of the death of other organisms. Herbivores kill plants to live. Carnivores kill animals to live. Omnivores kill both.

If we do not kill, we will die.

We are omnivores, and many animals we use and raise are carnivores. If we want to care for those carnivores, we must kill to keep them fed.

That means no matter how much Option 2 appeals emotionally, it is not open to us.

We kill for ourselves, and we kill on behalf of our companions.

That means Option 1.

As I child I learned the lesson well, we had rabbits and chickens. When you know the drumsticks, wings, and chicken breasts on your grill were the same ones you had fed for months, the chickens were running around a few days before and that you were involved with herding them to be killed, watching them die, and plucking them, it gives a deeper respect for the food.

We have the capacity to choose and decide how we interact with the animals in a thoughtful way. We can be ethical about it, keeping useless deaths to a minimum, giving the animals a high quality of life and ending their lives quickly with as little pain as possible, and using as much of the animal as possible. We can also be unethical about it, giving the animals a terrible life up until they are slaughtered in pain and terror. Most prefer the ethical options.

I recall a group of PETA activists some years back breaking into a mink farm near my home. They vandalized the place leaving marks about how it was unfair to have the animals in cages and being destined to die. In a bitter irony, the news came out that many of the mink had been hit and killed on the highway next to the farm before the vandals even left the facility. Those that survived were going to suffer starvation because the site was on the desert border with no food or water for them and they were not taught to hunt.

The activists were thinking only about the short-term captivity of the animals, rather than the longer term issues of life quality and sustainability. The animals were released from captivity, true, but in captivity they had an easy life with all their physical needs cared for and a steady flow of entertainment, and only at the end getting a quick painless death; being released meant either a painful death on the highway or a painful death through starvation and dehydration.

While I sympathize and agree that animals should have the best life they can, often a "release to the wild" is not a better life, but a slow, painful death.

Similarly, castrating our pets who will not be reproducing means less of their life will be driven by their reproductive hormones. I've watched animals come to self-harm and harm others because of their uncontrollable drives. The animals in our care do have a better quality of life within the bounds we set because of their sterilization.