Secret Life of Dogs is an AMAZING new programme on ITV narrated by Martin Clunes. It provides fabulously fascinating insight in to our incredible relationships with dogs across the world and history. From their ability to work with us, enjoy our hobbies (even paragliding!), and even save our lives — they truly are amazing animals.

However, as much as it makes my heart burst with love for our dogs, it also makes me surprisingly depressed. So much can and has been achieved because of our love and affection for dogs. Yet, they are not the cleverest of animals. Yes, they are bright, but pigs are far cleverer.

Pigs have the average intelligence of a three year old child and they are proven to outperform dogs in IQ tests. They are also extremely affectionate, they like to cuddle and snuggle up, nose to nose, with one another as they sleep. They are also very sociable, as the social media star Esther the Wonder Pig shows through her daily updates!

Just think what pigs would be capable of if we let them.

Yet one species has been allowed to thrive, whilst the story of the pig is quite different…

On any given day in the U.S., there are more than 68 million pigs on factory farms, and 115 million are killed for food each year. That’s about the same as the entire population of Thailand.

In the UK, over 10 million pigs are killed a year. That’s about the size of the population of Greece or Portugal.

And their lives are a pretty miserable existence…

“On factory farms, sows are no longer allowed to be the good mothers that nature intended. Instead, they are treated as inanimate “meat machines,” squeezed into narrow metal stalls barely larger than their own bodies, and kept constantly pregnant or nursing. Immobilized, mother pigs are unable even to nuzzle their piglets. Pigs’ tails are chopped off and their teeth are cut with pliers — and males are castrated — all without painkillers. At the end of their miserable lives, they get their first breath of fresh air as they are trucked to the slaughterhouse. Finally, they are hung upside-down and bled to death”

Would you accept this for our beloved dogs?

How different the lives of pigs could have been, if we saw them for what they were and not a rasher of bacon in a sandwich.