Sentient beings is the subject:

A reply to two silly letters in the Whitehorse Star of August 21, 2009

Re: Make him the subject to the Criminal Code!-(Denis O'Brien, Star August 7). I enjoy humour in letters, except it would be wonderful if these letters would at least address the topic(s) they are belittling. Just in case you have not got it yet, here is how we treat dogs: We breed dogs legally whenever we wish to; we kill them legally (at the vet's, too); we force many of them to work for us, and kill them when they cannot work any more; we chain them up and we continue to treat them as we dam well please, legally! etc! These attrocities we commit to them should "be subject to the Criminal Code", Mr O'Brien, since it is human behaviour that needs a shift; a ethical, moral change in the way we treat those which are not human.

Re: Suddenly, the flaky artist is the sanest person in the room - Chris Caldwell (Star, August 7). Again, the topic was not addressed. Chris Caldwell implied that the "feedback" she has read with respect to Trevor the dog is that "dogs are not human" and she said that "a lot of folks out there who actually believe that dogs are deeply intellectual beings capable of abstract thought, philosophy, logic and philanthropic action equal to humans". Were was it written that someone said that "Trevor should be treated as a human"? Where?

You may very well be "the sanest person in the room" Miss or Mrs Caldwell, except there is more to this world that the life in your room. All nonhumans, including Trevor, are sentient beings which means that they are capable of pain, pleasure, hunger; they grieve and bleed etc. This should be enough to accord them the right not to be the property of (in this case) Bylaw to claim "ownership" over him and kill him without just cause.

The issue surrounding Trevor was who had the right to claim "ownership" and if he is considered a "dangerous" dog, not wheather or not he should be considered human (how silly); he is a nonhuman animal (as we all know) and we are human animals. For someone who is "now accepting orders" for "Pet Portraits" you sure have a odd way of showing compassion (?) to those of us that concern ourselves with the well-being of non-human sentient beings that are considered "pets".

Guess what? Bylaws loses and Trevor wins!

Mike Grieco

PS. Bison and Elk are now a "nuisance species" and much killing needs to be done to "stabilize the size of the herd" of the bison. Bulls (boys), girls (cows), and calves (babies) will all be victims of "wildlife management". For the convenience of the hunters, highway hunting is now permited since bison prefer "habitat" that exist along road-ways and killing them will discourage them (?) from spending to much time along these roads. What a wonderful success story this has become! More on this topic-soon.