I went to Petco today and, without checking the bag very carefully, bought a relatively cheap, giant bag of dog food. When I get home I realize it's made with lamb. This brought on an attack of scruples: "Should I feed lamb meat to a dog?"
If certain Catholics eat lamb on Easter, as I have read they do in Italy, then there IS something symbolic about lamb meat. In which case, feeding lamb to a dog also has something unpleasantly symbolic about it. No?
Then again, when we eat lamb, we burn it first, and that could also be troubling from a symbolic perspective. So if it's okay to burn lamb meat before consuming it, I don't see why it's wrong to feed it to a dog.
It would be easier to just go get another bag of food but I'm trying to give myself practice in making distinctions and working through scruples.