RW> BR>    It's being a cat and practicing its craft.  There is no
 RW> BR> 'reason' attached  to the actions of an unreasoning animal.
 RW> BR> Cruelty presupposes conscious thought,  reason, and malice -
 RW> BR> none of which are indigenous to dogs and cats. 
 RW> No, its a cat slowly killing for its pleasure which if
 RW> it was a human it would be called cruel.  Animals have
 RW> conscious thought, can reason, and in my experience can
 RW> hold a grudge.
These are all concepts associated with reason and a higher sort of 
consciousness.  I guess you'll just have to continue to think what you think, 
and I'll do the same.  Animals can be taught to do limited things - calculus 
and abstract thoguht are two that are not represented in that list.
 RW> Again they are killing just for their own pleasure, in
 RW> most cases not only killing but mutilating. 
Reason fails here - they'll do it if someone is there to shoot at them.~
 RW> My point is dogs and cats and some other animals kill
 RW> not for food but for fun. 
I don't think it is 'fun' rather practice at what it takes to stay alive, and 
honing those skills.
  
 RW> I've been around and worked with animals all of my life
 RW> and I have to say that some of them I have seen had the
 RW> ability to be cruel and to do it with malice.
 RW> I think it all comes down to how we each define cruel
 RW> and cruelty.
Cruel and cruelty are human concepts.
Animals lack speech, for the most part.
It has been postulated that a species that has speech but lacks words for 
certain concepts is incapable of thinking of those concepts.
--- AdeptXBBS v1.11z (FREEWare/2)
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