Soup Kitchens for Dogs

A soup kitchen has opened in Berlin to make sure that the pets of homeless people are well fed. From the story:

Despite the looming financial crisis, director Claudia Hollm dismissed criticism that it may be more sensible to collect money for humans than for dogs. “Nowadays people underestimate dogs. They are incredibly important for those who lack social contact with other humans,” Hollm told Reuters. “Making sure dogs don’t go hungry is just as important as making sure that people don’t starve,” she added.

No, it is not “just as important as making sure people don’t starve.” If one had to choose between feeding a human and a dog, we should choose the human.

Luckily, in the affluent West, we don’t have to make such a choice. So with the above caveat, I think this is a spendid example of human exceptionalism, that is, exercising our duty to humanely treat animals that are in our care.

HT: S. Jensen