(If you don't know what a "third finger salute" is...  Think about it.  It may just come to you.)

This is mostly towards the extremists in the animal rights movement, but some of the normal folk can get on my nerves as well.  Sorry, but you do.

Right now, I'm sick and tired of every last little thing being deemed as animal cruelty.  They see a video (this is something I've personally seen) of a bunch of fat little puppies scrambling for food as it's poured into dishes, climbing on top of one another to get it, and what's the first thing that is screamed: "ANIMAL CRUELTY!!!!!!"  The puppies are FAT!!  WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT????  That's they way puppies act!  It's instictual, not cruelty on the owner's part!

Now, don't get me wrong.  I think animals deserve to be treated with respect and loved and cared for, but I don't know where the hell people get off on calling everything that you do with your critters animal cruelty.  It's not.  Get over it.

Okay, so maybe it's not so nice to scare "fainting goats" into going myotonic, but it is pretty damn funny.  It doesn't hurt them, but it is a bit of bullying.  It might not be nice to sneak up on a cat and make it jump, but it's not hurting it.  

I'm a pet owner.  I love my birds.  I feed and water them and clean their cage.  I give them baths.  I give them love.  I play with them.  They can come in and out of the cage as they please.  I took the white female budgie to the vet when she had some nasty scaley face.  I also let my daughter chase my green budgie around the living room.  Does he like it?  No.  Does she?  Yes.   So I let her.

My biggest pet peeve with the animal rights folks (and PETA is a big one that needs to shut their damn mouths over it) is their view on hunting.  Maybe it's just because I grew up with it.  I learned how to shoot a gun by age six (you gun control people are a subject for another day).  I shot a cow elk when I was 12.  I've skinned deer, elk, antelope, ducks, geese and quail.  I know how to field dress an elk and leave the gut pile for a coyote.  I know how to perfectly gut, then filet a fish. 

And you people call me sick.  

Ooo...  I killed an elk!  Oh, how sad!  I took it home, and had it butchered and the meat helped keep my family fed all through the winter that year!  Boo hoo!   I'm SO very sorry!

I hunt.  I am a conservationist.  Get over it.  If you didn't already know, the hunting licenses are regulated.  You can't kill as many animals as you want and totally decimate the population.  The amount of tags put out are there as a method of conservation.  It keeps the herd populations in check so they don't get absolutely huge and end up starving to death because their isn't enough food to support that big of a herd.  I don't know about you, but I'd much rather a bullet to the heart or brain, giving me a nice, quick, relatively painless death as opposed to a slow, incredibly painful death of starvation.  Now, who's the sick one?

Yes, many hunters do it for sport.  Not many do it strictly for the meat, though there aren't many who won't keep or donate the meat of the animals they've killed.  It doesn't get wasted.  I can't tell you how many years the freezer in my parents house was stocked with nothing but wild game because we couldn't afford beef.

And I don't really care that I don't need meat to survive.  I like meat.  I do not deny in any way shape or form that my protein could come from elsewhere, but why?  Our bodies were made to eat meat.  We have the proper teeth and biological processes to handle the digestion of it. 

Now, I'm not denying that it's sad to see an abused animal, or a dead pet that got hit by a car on the side of the road.  It IS sad.  But most people don't abuse animals.  There is a very small portion that do, so quit calling everything you see cruelty.  It's not.  It's just messing around and having fun. No one is getting hurt by it.  Unlike when extremists hurt people, bomb labratories that do animal testing, threaten people, etc.

Now, I know many folks are going to get their panties in a twist over this, but I really don't care.  I like who I am, and would rather be that than a damn fanatic.