Attention whores will do anything to get attention

Tattooing your dog should get you twenty years in the pen.

@2,

Fuck that, it should get you drawn & quartered.

Anytime your pet is put under anesthetic there's a risk. I've actually known a couple people who've either lost dogs or had close calls due to a vet somehow mis-calibrating dosages. And I'd be loathe to trust any anesthesiologist working a pet tattoo clinic. Humans are the worst, indeed.

@2 & 3 have it covered.

All of my animal companions are rescues. It's already hard enough saving discarded pets in shelters and finding them new homes without adding the additional burdensome layer of a former possessor's overweening sense of property and entitlement exemplified by a permanent, lame-ass tattoo on an animal's skin.

Why does this make me think of slave owners branding their property with pleasing artistic designs?

WTF? *unintelligible argle bargle*

Who the fuck tattoos their dog? (or cat?) I can't even imagine such a thing. Or at least I couldn't until reading this. Ugh. I have a tattoo myself, so I'm not totally anti-tattoo. But never on a pet. Jesus. Pets are just little furry things that are supposed to give us warm happy thoughts.

Gah! *runs, screaming gibberish down the street*

I don't know why I'm all worked up over this, but tattooing pets is seriously fucked up.

I assume everyone bitching about pets being tattooed is vegetarian. Otherwise it seems pretty hypocritical. I've been subjected to hundreds of hours of tattooing and sure it hurts, but it's better than being killed and eaten.

What about cropping of ears and tails? People do that shit all the time for no benefit other than appearance.

I'm going with "fucked up and pointless." But the choices should have included "legal for pitbulls only" and "legal for every breed but pitbulls."

This is bullshit. What will they ban next, doggy nipple piercings?

I always find it entertaining how up in arms people get when there is a chance a dog has been mistreated, but another animal we eat or do not view as "acceptable" pets?

Hey, whatever.

I ate an animal today. Animals are property. Also, my couch is made from an animal.

I despise pet parents.

Considering the way people project so much of their own personalities on their pets, it's not surprising that freaks are projecting their self-mutilation desires onto Fido as well.

@13, you win Slog today!

@7 "I've been subjected to hundreds of hours of tattooing and sure it hurts, but it's better than being killed and eaten."

Two things.

First, you chose to subject yourself to those hundreds of hours. Your dog didn't. You knew what you were getting into and you found it worth it because the outcome of providing you continuing pleasure outweighed the temporary discomfort. Your dog is going to get nothing out of the experience except the discomfort; the benefit isn't for them, it's for the selfish owner who will trade another being's pain for their amusement.

Secondly, unless you're given the choice between "kill and eat your dog or get it a tattoo" then defending one because it's more humane than the other is a false dichotomy. Most pets will get neither tattooed nor consumed, so the third, morally preferable, option is to just realize that both are harmful and do neither.

Now, do I think that tattooing a pet is morally reprehensible or cruel? Not really, if it's done under proper anesthesia and medical supervision. But do I think that it's completely free from harm? No. In my mind that puts it alongside things like dew claw removal, tail docking, or declawing - stupid things humans do to animals because they can.

@7 has a point - we should allow random people to tattoo vegetarians if they want to, especially if they gag them first.

It costs something like $40,000 a year to jail a person. Let's be real.

Horrible. Unnecessary. Cruel.

That being said, one of our dogs had a tattoo when she came to us. She had been seized by police in Austin when her former owner was arrested. While he was in jail, the dog was at a shelter and they spayed her/ gave her tiny tattoo of the female symbol w/ a slash thru it on her belly.

Weird. Should not be allowed electively

Wow. On a forum where everyone chooses their favorite identity politic by which they live and die, the one thing that brings everyone together is wittle puppies gettin ther wittle stomachs tattooed.

No one can agree on whether a bunch of kids getting bullets in their brains is an acceptable cost of our freedumbs, but sticking a needle into the upper layers of dermis on a dog freaks you all the fuck out.

@17- Excellent point but it needs to be illegal so that they can prevent it. I knew a dog that was killed randomly by a neighbor, weird, premeditated, drive-to-the-river shit. Because the dog had been a free rescue it was charged as theft of property worth under $50.