{"id":1,"date":"2014-06-20T19:17:23","date_gmt":"2014-06-20T19:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vetvegan.com\/?p=1"},"modified":"2016-04-28T15:35:42","modified_gmt":"2016-04-28T14:35:42","slug":"hello-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.vetvegan.com\/?p=1","title":{"rendered":"Hello world!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Animals (in the broadest sense, belonging to the kingdom Animalia<\/em>) have always been very close to my heart, although truthfully I prefer to be a healthy distance from snakes. My childhood ambition, after outgrowing a \u201cgame ranger\u201d phase,\u00a0 was to become a veterinary surgeon and help sick dogs and cats get better .\u00a0 And lo, this came to pass in 1980. And it was good. For a quite a while.<\/p>\n

Throughout my veterinary training I accepted the \u201cfood\u201d and \u201cpet\u201d divide amongst my patients,\u00a0 never questioning the fact that I would be treating a cow (or a sheep or a pig or a chicken or a goat) in order that she (or he) would recover in order\u00a0 to be killed later.<\/p>\n

Believe me, I still can\u2019t explain why I would battle to save one animal\u2019s life, then without any hesitation, thought or question, eat or wear\u00a0 dead parts stolen from another being,<\/p>\n

It still beggars belief that I was sickened by the sights, sounds and smell of\u00a0 abattoirs during my training, yet continued to participate in such cruelty despite this knowledge.<\/p>\n

How could I accept dairy cows being kept perpetually pregnant, udders swollen and distended, their calves torn away to be raised artificially, slaughtered\u00a0 for veal or reared to become milk machines themselves?<\/p>\n

Why did I not question the morality of\u00a0 rearing \u201cbroiler chickens\u201d or \u201clayers\u201d in appalling conditions, deprived of light, space and dignity ?<\/p>\n

Surely I must have considered those beings who died so that animal experiments could prove some physiological or pharmacological fact?<\/p>\n

Why did I accept the way animals were turned into units, like paperclips or disposable paper cups?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know the answers to these questions. My only excuse (not a very good one) is that the ability to “unsee” the obvious exploitation \u00a0is the norm in our society.<\/p>\n

Fast forward too many years,\u00a0 the realisation that I was actively participating in a\u00a0 holocaust slowly came to me.\u00a0 Once the blinkers came off,\u00a0 overcome with regret and horror, I became a vegan. I shall die a vegan.<\/p>\n

This blog is my way of apologizing to everyone that I\u2019ve hurt.<\/p>\n

Hopefully, my words will strike a chord with others, opening minds and hearts, causing\u00a0 fewer nonhuman<\/span> animals to die.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe one day the animals will be free.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Animals (in the broadest sense, belonging to the kingdom Animalia) have always been very close to my heart, although truthfully I prefer to be a healthy distance from snakes. My childhood ambition, after outgrowing a \u201cgame ranger\u201d phase,\u00a0 was to become a veterinary surgeon and help sick dogs and cats get better .\u00a0 And lo, … Continue reading Hello world!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vetvegan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vetvegan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vetvegan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vetvegan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vetvegan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.vetvegan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38,"href":"http:\/\/www.vetvegan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/38"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vetvegan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vetvegan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vetvegan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}