The Hare of the Dog

So we were having a nice day by the pool. Mia the dog was lounging without a care in the world. And dad brought out some bunnies for my niece to play with. One bunny got out. In short, there was a loud squeal and Mia appeared with you-know-what in her mouth. I screamed, bunny fell, Mia looked confused yet unphased as if to say (you know i chase squirrels around all day). In the end, the bunny was buried in the yard. I thought I was going to throw up. I couldn't even eat my halved avocado. Granted, Mia spent her entire puppy life at a hunting camp, but I thought she was past that. Apparently she will never get past it. I was so nauseated from the whole thing. And everyone was freaking out too, but about .4 seconds after it happened, discussion started up about grilling for Memorial Day and BLT sandwiches. Wait, hold that thought.

This reminded me of a zoo panda I read about once. I had read about some huge event a zoo was having to help save a panda, and everyone was standing around, so excited about the zoo's efforts to save the panda or to build it a nicer home or something, and the zoo was selling hot dogs named after the panda.* Do we love the panda and the bunny, but we are so far removed from the processing of the meat that we do choose to eat that the actual process of the processed food doesn't phase us. I've been rolling this around in my head for hours now.

However you feel about all of it -- sometimes we are just given a live dose of the food chain and it ain't pretty. Since I'm always dabbling with vegetarianism and reading literature about it and the benefits of predominately plant-based diets, this little scene reminded me that for whatever reason, it's easy to not think about our food, and some of us live our whole lives blissfully unaware of where anything we eat comes from and how it got so neatly packaged, if it's safe and was it at least treated and killed humanely. (Or, avoiding it all together). We're so far removed from the process of how all food comes to our plates, that we can talk about BLTs while we cry over a bunny.  Just something to think about.

(* I think I read about it in a book called Eating Animals)