Political correctness gone barking mad as UK supermarket bans use of dogs across Silver Fern Farm works

What the...?

The news today that UK giant supermarket Tescos has ordered a ban on all working dogs in the yards across Silver Fern Farm meat works is nothing more than animal activism gone mad.

Silver Fern Farms communication manager Brent Melville said last week's visit by supermarket officials has reinforced the need to phase out the use of dogs in sheep and lamb yards.

"Accordingly the company has committed itself to removing all dogs from all lamb sites by the commencement of the new season."

Bleeding hearts unite. The good old uninformed UK consumer has spoken yet again. Ignorant of farming practices they have shown yet again how dangerous their uneducated views can be.

A relation of mine told me a frightening story recently about a London boyfriend. This man had lived in London all his life and told her that he had never seen a vegetable in a garden and did not know that carrots grew in dirt. He was not an unintelligent man but it gives some context as to the continuing problems we are facing from that part of the world.

So divorced from reality are these consumers that Tescos have made an unreasonable demand to change a Kiwi way of life because they say it causes 'stress' to the sheep. Apparently humans yelling and rattling lumps of metal as sheep make their way through a yard does not.

Should Silver Fern Farms have accepted this demand or should they have used the international media to forward the Kiwi shepherd's case?

Although Tescos is important to Silver Fern Farms there is also an important principle at stake here, and if we say nothing and then announce the policy change backhandedly as the company have done, we are the losers.

At least give us a chance to fight our case and use this opportunity to prove to these ill-informed Brits that our Kiwi sheepdogs are as iconic as the meat itself.

Absolutely barking.

For more on the story go to http://www.ashburtonguardian.co.nz/