People need tattoos. I’m not saying that everyone needs to be tattooed, no. What I’m suggesting is that the human race is a whole lot better off with tattoos than without them. Natch. Animals however, most certainly do not need tattoos. Actually, let me rephrase that: those little tattoos that animals get in their ears that keep them registered with places like the SPCA and all that? Those are good tattoos for animals. Great. But that’s about as far as we need to take the whole concept of tattooing animals. In the past there have been rather poor examples of taste with regard to this issue, some of which have been documented here at Tattoo Blog. Thankfully, it’s not a growing trend, this animal tattooing.
Which is exactly why I was pleased and relieved to see that a German court recently ruled against one man’s attempt to ignite the trend of tattooing animals. The man wanted to tattoo his pony with the famous Rolling Stone’s tongue logo and had already shaved the area on the pony where he planned to have the logo tattooed.
‘The court in Muenster, northwestern Germany, found against the white pony’s owner, who wanted to tattoo the animal’s right hind thigh to make it “more uniquely beautiful.”
He had already shaved a large portion of hair from the animal and pre-tattooed the outline of the tongue, 15 square centimetres (six square inches) in area.’
The court went on to declare that tattooing an animal contravened Germany’s animal protection laws and that the animal itself would be incapable of comprehending exactly why it was being tattooed. Makes sense to me, seeing as how I highly doubt that a German pony gives two shits about any of the Rolling Stones, let alone their music and gigantic tongue logo. Still, something tells me that we haven’t seen the last of people trying to gain notoriety, wealth and prestige by tattooing defenceless animals…