Left Side of the Aisle #94 - Part 4

Clown Award: Man wants his dog killed because it's "gay"

The Clown Award, given for meritorious stupidity

This week, I can't give you the name of our winner of the red nose, because his name appears to be unknown or at least unreleased. But I can tell you he is from Jackson, Tennessee and he was the owner of a male pitbull-American bulldog mix.

It seems that our unnamed and no doubt thoroughly macho man saw the dog humping another male dog. That's actually normal canine behavior for both males and females and while it's often an expression of dominance, it can also be done out of nervousness or excitement or just as play. But oh, no, our highly-evolved Tennesseean decided it meant his dog was gay - and he just couldn't have that!

So on January 29 he turned the dog over to the Jackson Rabies Control Animal Shelter, a "high-kill" shelter, to be killed, which term I inist on using instead of whitewashing euphemisms like "put down" or "put to sleep," or particularly in this case, even "euthenasia," which means mercy killing and is supposed to be applied to cases where the intent is to put an end to great suffering - and the only suffering this dog, which is quite healthy, was experiencing at this time was abandonment.

Happily, the pup was saved literally just a few hours before he was to be killed. He was taken by a woman named Stephanie Fryns, who is affiliated with an animal rescue group. She named him Elton and after neutering, a health check, and a temperament test, he'll be placed in a suitable home.

Now, let it be said here that it is possible the dog is gay. Homosexual behavior has been recorded in more than 1,000 different animal species, including dogs, and a number of mammal species, including giraffes, dolphins, and bonobos, have been observed having homosexual sex just for the fun of it.

But that doesn't change the fact that whoever this guy in Tennessee is, he is a homophobe, a bigot, utterly ignorant of canine behavior, and a complete, thoroughgoing clown.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/31/gay-dog-euthanized-tennessee_n_2590537.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/201107/why-does-my-neutered-dog-mount-other-dogs
http://www.examiner.com/article/dog-euthanized-for-being-gay
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/01/elton-the-gay-dog-spared-the-gas-chamber/