While most people wouldn't consider making a meal out of their own house pet, why would they care if some dog they've never met or seen that lives hundreds of miles away figured in a feast? Sure, people are sentimental and humane. They're not in favor of cruelty to animals, except maybe fish. But once an animal has been humanely dispatched, what does it matter if it's buried in a landfill or served in a fricassee? Cows, chickens and hogs are slaughtered and eaten on a daily basis, does the dog that barks at the mailman and sometimes fetches a stick deserve some higher standing in the animal world?
Of course, many people would say "Yes", thinking about their own Fluffy. As the pro-choice people say, "If you don't believe in abortion, don't have one". If you don't believe in dogs as human food, don't eat one. There is, however, another dimension to this situation. People that consider dogs and cats as food aren't members of the dominant American cultural milieu. They're primarily perceived as being east Asian, a group of people that tolerate child brides, communist dictators and dogs eaten with smooth sticks.
Americans enthusiastically accept foreign dances and costumes and some exotic foods. This is embracing "diversity". But when it comes to fourteen year-old brides and dog meat at the wedding reception a line has been crossed.
It's not hard to believe that a significant part of the animosity toward eating dogs and cats is, in fact, also discrimination toward foreigners. A subdivision of this culinary loathing is directed, perhaps without direct or indirect knowledge, toward native Americans, who have historically included dogs in their diet. In pre-Columbian Mexico, dogs were bred especially for use as food. The American plains Indians ate dog under ordinary circumstances and do so even today. If the US Congress doesn't have anything better to do than enact a ban on dog consumption maybe they should just go home.
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