Two darling teenage girls out for a walk saw a stack of cages containing feral cats. As a light hearted lark, they poured lighter fluid on one and set it on fire, laughing at their uproarious hi-jinx.
If I met these two twisted little delinquents while carrying a gun, they’d be dead. If I had a can of gasoline, I’d light them on fire myself, then track down their parents and see how they burned.
Am I serious? I guess I’m exaggerating a little. Not much, though. Unlike a lot of humans, if I had to make a choice between saving a miscellaneous stranger’s child and saving a cat or dog, I’m not completely sure which I’d choose. I don’t particularly believe that humans are supreme: my own family and friends, yes, but other humans? Moreso than the other creatures we share the world with? Perhaps not.
Definitely not in the case of at least two 15 year olds who will almost certainly receive little more than a smack on the wrist. Then they’ll go off to breed and raise more mouth breathing, crap for brains humans incapable of either compassion or complex thought. God save us from their offspring.
While not nearly as severe I still think of how long it took Kira (remember her? The jersey cat Irene saved and we took in? We still have her and she’s happy and often found snoozing on my dad’s chest while they nap on the couch) to become comfortable with someone touching her back and tail. She would always run from large gatherings of people we had and spit and run from yuppie larva. Evidence of some yuppie thinking she’d be good for the kids. We always suspected becasue she fought back to protect herself the family likely abandoned her or she ran away.
It’s taken her five years to be comfortable enough to come out when we have visitors. Lately she’s actually been caught rubbing the legs of visitors and purring when they pet her.
My own was also taken in by people who care more about animals than humans thankfully and was saved from being euthanized for just having the luck of being born wild. She the most embarrassing lap whore you’ve ever seen and I’d do more to protect her than I would for most people I know. I don’t have a great deal of respect for the human animal and stuff like this makes me angry.
What you say about Kira and your own cat are the sorts of things that underlie my exaggerated reaction. So many animals are mistreated and abused as a natural course of human ignorance and superiority, starting with the people who have animals and leave them unneutered because they can’t “afford” the vet bill. For a brief second I imagined any of our cats being the victim of those two girls in the news item. And you see my response.
A part of what bothers me about this is the reaction some people have to the outpouring of anger towards the girls and love for the injured cat. Their response? “There wasn’t this much reaction when a child was kidnapped last year.” Like people should care even less than they already do for animals. Like some anonymous human child is instantly supposed to be more important just because its human. As if there is something wrong with people who are outraged at the abuse of an innocent animal.
Those two girls will likely get at most a few months of probation for their acts. If it was *my* cat, I don’t know if I’d be able to let it slide like that.
And there is the line between a RESPONSIBLE pet owner and the majority.
I know a family who have recently acquired a dog and the animal is not being well treated. 3 boys in the family have no concept of responsibility when it came the fish I cannot understand what the parents were thinking when they ‘got them the dog to teach them responsibility’. These brats can’t even do basic chores let alone oversee a life. It makes me furious every time the puppy yelps. I’m not a dog person but no animal deserves that. The parents could use the same lesson. Their ‘children’ are monsters and they themselves almost treat the children like second rate pets. It’s brutal. I don’t go over often becasue I come away feeling dirty and cowardly for not speaking up about the puppy (I could care less about the kids)
They view the pets in terms of money and money only. As for the outcry over the other missing/murdered child in that neighbourhood… well, I don’t feel much one way or the other. “Higher reasoning” certainly has not given us great claim to life than another creature.