Maybe it's safer to be a dog.

We get used to hearing stories these days about the animal rights crowd at PETA, the "People for Ethical Treatment of Animals", as they go to great lengths to protect animals of all sorts against "unethical" treatment. But normally we think of the Humane Society as more within bounds that the rest of us non-PETA types can agree with.

That opinion may change for some, after reading in today's Omaha news about a man being ticketed for animal cruelty, after the Humane Society followed up on a veternarian's concerns about the man taking his sick dog home, rather than paying for the animal to be treated or turning it over to the HS folks, who would have euthanized the dog.

According to the World-Herald reporter, "The Humane Society and Omaha police, acting on the veterinarian's concerns that Palmer might kill his own dog, went to his home Sept. 8 with a warrant, used a battering ram on the door and dug up the dog's body in the backyard." After determining through testing that the animal was not killed, but rather died of its "treatable" disease, the owner was issued the citation.

One wonders what the HS would do about farmers and other rural people, who in times past (maybe not really past) used their own form of "euthanizing" on a terminally sick or otherwise unwanted animal, in the form of a bullet that sent Rover packing to doggie heaven. To be clear, I have been grieved as any dog lover would be, to have taken two of them at different times to a vet or the Humane Society for their departure from this world. And now I see that it was a good thing for me that I didn't leave them at home on "dog hospice", thus running the risk of an unwelcome visit from the authorities.

I sympathize with those who would want us to have laws to protect dogs from cruelty, but why does it seem that many of the same folks who stick up for the "rights" of animals are also in the same political vein with those who deny such rights to an unborn child. I don't see anyone following a pregnant woman home to make sure she doesn't abort her child. No, that's her choice, says the group of people eager to defend a woman's right to choose.

It looks like it's safer to be a dog than a fetus. At least then you have people in governmental authority ready to fight for your well-being. This dog owner didn't have a "choice" over his own animal, while a woman can legally do whatever she wants with a human being inside her womb. What a world we live in!