Pets Are For Life, You Idiot!

I read something that made my blood boil. It made me ashamed to be a member of the human race. It sickened me, and made me cry.

Allison Benedikt wrote a piece for Slate titled The One Thing No One Tells You Before You Have Kids: Don’t get a dog. I wish to God someone HAD told her that, before she got a dog and then casually tossed it aside after having kids.

Her dog, Velvel, was the center of her life…until she had kids. And then he became a burden, an inconvenient thing she no longer loved or wanted because she had something she considered “better.” 

I think people who decide their pets are no longer worthy of their love once kids come along are the lowest life form on earth. That she could toss aside her faithful pooch and treat him like garbage is bad enough, but to write about it so heartlessly while trying so hard to make her story “funny” is just really, really wrong.

The first offensive thing she said was: “John took the newborn hat from the hospital for Velvel to smell, to prepare him for the tiny human heading his way. That was probably the last nice thing we ever did for him.”

Unfortunately, that was just the tip of the iceberg. If I was sad for her poor dog at this point, it was nothing for how she’d make me feel as she continued her filthy foray into the depravity of her mind. She wrote: “A friend of mine once told me that before he had a kid, he would have run into a burning building to save his cats. Now that he has a kid, he would happily drown the cats in the bathtub if it would help his son take a longer nap. Here is how I feel about that statement: Velvel, avoid the bathroom.”

Then she tries to make us believe that everyone she knows who has kids wishes they had never gotten a dog. She calls that a universal truth. It may be true among her circle of friends (for if they spend time willingly with someone so despicable, their judgment is certainly a bit “off”). But it’s far from a universal truth in my own circle. What about yours?

Those who have kids and then regret having a dog (or a cat) should never be allowed to have a pet in the first place. It’s a pity there isn’t some kind of litmus test for this. If you can’t commit to loving and caring for your pet for life, don’t get one. There really is no other way.

I want to scoop up this poor dog, hold his paw and tell him that I love him and that I will always love him no matter what. It’s what he deserves but will never get. What a crying shame.

Rocky and Belle's 10th Gotcha Day! (sort of)

Annabelle here. My *twin* brofur Rocky and I are ten years old now! The Warden doesn’t know what day in July we were born, so we get to celebrate the whole month. How cool is that? She also doesn’t remember the exact day in July that she rescued us, because a) her brain is old as dirt and b) back then, she didn’t know that kitties celebrated their Gotcha Day. She learned this from all of you wonderful pet bloggers. So now we not only celebrate our birthday in July, but our Gotcha Month, too!

I can’t imagine what the Warden must have thought when she found us, all covered in fleas and clinging to life. We were a sight, I am sure.  Those fleas were eating us alive and two of our brofurs had already died, so it was definitely our lucky day when the Warden found us in that shack. Our momma was with us, but she was sick too from the fleas, and there wasn’t enough milk to go around. When the Warden picked us up, she could see thousands of fleas crawling on our tiny little bodies! She nearly lost her lunch!!

It was so hard for the Warden to imagine that someone would arrange for the care of their plants while they went on vacation for 2 weeks, but not for teeny tiny kittens living in a flea-infested shack. Just unthinkable, she said. But there we were, (barely) living proof that idiots really do live among us. The Warden knew she had to take us away immediately, no matter what the lady would say when she got back from cavorting on an island somewhere.

It turns out the dumb lady didn’t really care what happened to us. She didn’t care that we had flea anemia and nearly died. She didn’t care that we needed round-the-clock TLC  to make sure we lived. The Warden said she’d give us back to the lady OVER HER DEAD BODY. But that threat of dying was unnecessary, because the lady didn’t care that Rocky and I were never going back to that shack. Hooray for her not caring, because that meant we could stay with the Warden furever!

And that’s where we’ve been, for ten years. We have a wonderful life, because the Warden is the best Mom ever. I don’t know how I know this…I just do. When people tell her that she spoils us, she proudly replies “Well, of course I do!” When they say, “They’re just cats!” she gives them a look that would wither the dead if they weren’t already skeletons.

As if we could ever be “just” anything. We’re her family, her fur kids, her earth angels. The Warden says we make her life worth living. I say, she does the same for us!