Blog#3: Animals

For this post I read the story "April in Paris" in the same David Sedaris book (pages 204-217). This story talks about how much impact animals have on convincing people of things. Sedaris brought up the example of after Katrina. There were incessant news stories about the horrible disaster, with phone numbers to call to and donate flashing across the screen. But what if they had had a puppy on the TV? Would they have made more money? Honestly, I think they would have. One example that comes to mind is the charity 'Helping Paws'. I was recently at a benefit dinner for this organization because my aunt is involved with them. They were telling about all the large companies that had recently chosen them as their charitable initiative for the year. As much as aid dogs are a very good cause, I am sure that they were only chosen because they are animals. To get these donations, the company brings in one of these dogs to do a demonstration. The dog is very talented, and also adorable and loving. Also, it is frankly much more enjoyable spending the evening at a benefit dinner for cute animals with people telling about how these dogs changed their lives than to learn about the next horrible disease that is killing thousands and ripping families apart. Sedaris brings up the point of how much people connect to animals, which is very true. They have cute little faces and touch your heart. To me, this idea that animals impact people more than human suffering is very frightening. I love animals as much as anyone else, I'm a vegetarian who tries to avoid animal products whenever possible, yet I believe that humans should come before, or at least equal to, humans. But in the end the best advice comes from Sedaris when he recommends to include animals on advertisements for non animal-related charities.