Trump says lock up your dogs and cats

Jim Brown

Jim Brown is a former Louisiana state senator, Secretary of State, Commissioner of Insurance and a regular contributor to The Gazette.

It’s a national scandal and a call to arms. Our country is under attack by dog and cat eaters. So says our former president. That’s right.  Donald Trump is saying that in some communities, immigrants are prowling neighborhoods stealing our pets.  “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” he said “The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating—they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame.”
Well of course, stealing pets is against the law. But what about eating dogs and cats? Do people even do that?  Yes they do.  In fact, eating these domestic critters is pretty popular in some parts of the world.  An estimated 30 million dogs across Asia are still killed for human consumption every year according to the Humane Society International. The practice is most common in China, South Korea, The Philippines, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and India.  Each year in June, the city of Yulin in southern China hosts a dog meat festival, where live dogs and cats are sold specifically for eating and an estimated 10,000 are slaughtered for their meat.
In South Korea, dog meat dishes are so common that they have their own name – Gaegogi. The country has an estimated 17,000 dog farms, according to the Humane Society, where animals are routinely prepared for human consumption.
Of course we in America are appalled that someone would eat a pet. Well, pretty much so. After all, many Americans have adopted a variety of animals as pets.  I would imagine that the former president and a majority of Americans  have no problem eating Porky Pig, Donald Duck, and Bambi. And horsemeat is starting to become more popular throughout the United States. So what’s the big deal about eating Trigger and Mr. Ed? Right? 
Now I live in the deepest of the deep southern states where we eat about anything. Louisiana has been called the Culinary Mecca of America. Folks in this part of the country can take just about anything edible and make it not just good, but quite exceptional. And when we say anything, we mean everything. I had a Cajun friend tell me that “Yeah, we fry everything – if we could stick a bike tire in the right kind of batter, we’d eat it.”
I wrote a cookbook some years ago that includes such delicacies as my “world famous” squirrel stew, venison goulash, possum and chestnuts, rabbit in sour cream, and Louisiana Governor Jimmy Davis’s favorite, fried coon file’.
I was traveling through Cajun country a few years ago, and stopped at a rural general store for a cup of coffee. An old fellow was on the porch cooking up a pot of something that smelled good. “Whatcha’ cookin’?” I asked. “Got me a gumbo,” he replied. I inquired what kind of gumbo, and he told me, “an owl gumbo.” When I asked him what an owl gumbo tasted like, he smiled and said, “Oh, about like a hawk gumbo.” (And by the way, I had a pet owl with a broken wing that I kept for several years until it passed away.)
I know friends that have kept a nutria as a pet. If you don’t know, a nutria is a large rat that is regularly publicized as a tasty dish by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. So, to each his own.
Seeing that our locals regularly eat alligator sauce piquante, and add to a stew or gumbo just about anything else that flies or crawls, it’s hard for many of us to get too worked up over a little horsemeat or any other animal being eaten  I know that many of you readers have a special affection for the majestic horse. But all horses eventually have to be disposed of. And the same horses that would be slaughtered in the U.S. under strict guidelines are now being shipped to other countries and both treated and killed in far more cruel ways.
So go ahead and eat what you want. Just leave me and my dog, cat, horse, owl, deer, peacock, and all my other animal friends alone. Right Mr. President?
Peace and Justice
Jim Brown
Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.