What?

My dad thinks this photograph of me on my sofa is funny. But, before you laugh, you should know that the reason I look somewhat startled is that dad had just woken me up to tell me that, as of today, pets in the UK now have a ‘Bill of Rights’. That means that all puppies and kittens (and hamsters and goldfish, I suppose) are now legally entitled to ‘a proper diet and a suitable environment and housing to ensure they can behave normally and without pain or disease’. So there!

Of course, I don’t live in the UK but we’re all part of Europe, and I’m a European citizen with my very own passport, so I’m sure the new rules apply to me.

And what’s a ‘proper diet’, I hear you ask? You get one guess!

Now, I admit that if you’ve been reading the Newsreel feature that I’ve added to my blog (look to the right—and my thanks to those very clever folks at Google for providing it) you may have seen articles claiming that pets should not be fed ‘human food’ because it can be dangerous for us. So I went to the source (the American Veterinary Medical Association) and checked out the list of things you should never, ever feed us, and here it is:

- Alcoholic beverages - Chocolate (bakers, semi-sweet, milk chocolate) - Coffee (ground, beans, chocolate-covered espresso beans) - Moldy or spoiled foods - Onions and onion powder - Garlic and garlic powder - Salt - Yeast dough - Macadamia nuts - Raisins and grapes - Avocado - Hops (used in home brewing) - Fatty foods - Bones - Milk - Raw eggs - Raw or undercooked meat - Products containing the sweetener xylitol

Do you see any mention of cooked chicken on that list? I think not…

Have I made my point?