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 Cooperative and social relationships between man and animals began in the prehistoric age. Some animals bonded well with humans, such as dogs. They became part of human communities, occupying a position for mutual dependence, taking part in hunting, helping out as watchdogs, or simply serving as companions.
These animals were different from livestock and were accorded a different status as companion animals. Dogs especially become members of a family very easily, unconditionally accepting their human companions and their conditions.
They are family members and friends for their whole lives. They are friends for children and good companions for the lonely or the old. They guide and help the handicapped. They help the police and soldiers in search and rescue operations. They do so much good work for us, yet we perhaps don't appreciate the immensity of their contribution as we should.
In keeping with that contribution and the huge dependence on humans (that humans themselves have created), we have a huge responsibility to our companion animals.
 We have a moral and ethical obligation to treat them properly. We should reward them in accordance with their great contribution to human society. We should never take for granted the love and faithfulness they offer. We should never forget that they have feelings and desires and the need to belong. For these reasons, humans need laws to protect these animals, the other members of our human community, and their rights as such.
Unfortunately, many people do not treat companion animals as well as they should in Korea. Dogs especially are abandoned or end up being sold to meat traders. More than irresponsible, such acts are nothing short of a shameful betrayal of man's best friend and reflect a total lack of compassion and moral integrity.
At KARA we ask that everyone be responsible for their companions. When you take them in, they become family members and it is your responsibility to provide for their needs. That includes treating them with respect and giving back as much love as you get from them, even when they get sick or very old. Just as we need our ID cards, medical check ups and birth controls, ensure they get name tags, vaccination, parasite treatment and, in many cases, neutering.
We at KARA hope in time to see proper ethical and enlightened laws implemented to protect companion animals in this country. But even if the government has so far failed, by treating your companion animals as friends should be treated, and by supporting legislation for strong and reliable laws to protect them, you are at least fulfilling your obligations and responsibilities to our friends and companions.
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Animal Rescue Korea
Do you wish to adopt a pet or do you have an animal to put up for adoption? Then contact us or the hard-working folks at Animal Rescue Korea.
Animal Rescue Korea is a growing community of animal lovers throughout South Korea working to find homes for homeless pets and to help animals in need.
Click the logo to visit Animal Rescue Korea
The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but rather, "Can they suffer?
Jeremy Bentham
I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.
Henry David Thoreau
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favour freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are people who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Frederick Douglass
I know, in my soul, that to eat a creature who is raised to be eaten, and who never has a chance to be a real being, is unhealthy. It's like...you're just eating misery. You're eating a bitter life.
Alice Walker
As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.
Pythagoras
Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they're only animals.
Theodor Adorno
We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.
William Ralph Inge
In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis. Human beings see oppression vividly when they're the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought.
Isaac Bashevis Singer
All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals.
Peter Singer
A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.
Leo Tolstoy
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
Mahatma Gandhi
Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.
Thomas Edison
Animals are my friends... and I don't eat my friends.
George Bernard Shaw
The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.
Charles Darwin
I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.
Leonardo Da Vinci
Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.
Albert Einstein
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