In my family, we have a running joke about eating our pets if we ever get that poor. I know it wouldn’t really be funny if we were that poor—we’d likely have to give them up to someone who could care for them, and poverty certainly isn’t funny, but we’re a little warped that way. Anyway, the point is that we would never eat our beloved pets and anyone who knows us knows we’re joking.

That said, I ran across this news story and was simply astounded by what I read. A family in New Zealand had grown tired of their canine companion—a Staffordshire terrier—and apparently barbecued and ate it.

Um, wow.

Not only that—the owner didn’t even get into trouble with the law after the local animal protection agency reported it because the dog was killed “humanely.”

So my first thought was that this family is psycho. I mean, a pet in my family is family—you may think that because we jest about eating them we don’t feel that way, but we do. Heck, we joke to our three-year-old that we’re going to “eat” her as we chase her and then pretend to gobble her fingers. She thinks it’s hilarious, and it’s good family fun.

Roasting Fido on a spit, however, is not. What is this guy teaching his kids by eating the family dog, anyway? That it would be alright to do the same with Grandma when she gets old and senile? Many people all over the Internet are outraged at this atrocity, including some New Zealanders.

Dog meat, however, is a “delicacy” for many young men of the area.

Apparently eating dog is pretty common in the area of Tonga, says Garth Halliday of the Auckland Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. “That is the normal way—if one can use that word—that animals are killed all over the world.”

Indeed, Halliday is right, and I must interject my own shock with this thought—why is it so bad to eat a dog when we normally eat cows, pigs, chickens and other rabbits on a daily basis?

People in the U.S. raise these animals for eating, to be sure—but is it no less cruel? The man in this case hit his own dog in the head with a hammer, and once it was unconscious, he slit its throat.

How is that different from killing other sentient beings—boiling birds alive while they can still feel, torturing downed animals, or keeping them confined in their own feces until they get so sick or nuts that they die on their own or harm themselves out of frustration?

Pigs, after all, are pretty much as smart as dogs, and whether smart or stupid, farm animals can all feel pain; most factory farm animals endure a hell of a lot more torture than this barbecued pup did.

I’m not condoning the dog-on-a-stick; what I’m saying is that if people are so outraged about this incidence, they should take it upon themselves to not eat meat and refrain from allowing the torture of one creature. (On another note, I wonder how many of these people also support the torture of people in the name of “national security,” or the death penalty, as so many Americans do? Food for thought , anyway.)

What do you think? Was it okay for this guy to kill and eat his dog? What about other animals?