Exploitive? That is a laugh. I am the one being taken advantage of.
I have to talk like a girl because they like it.
I have to walk the dogs, because they like it. 3, 4, 5, 6 times a day.
I have to carefully check their food to ensure it is of the highest quality.
I spend $100 a month for food and toys for two dogs. Sometimes I explain to them that life would be easier for all of us if they had opposable thumbs so they could get a job and help out a little around here.
Apparently that would be a real hardship on all the sleeping they do.
I have no idea what the cost per year is for vets but it is a couple grand and the last two have exceeded $7,000 for operations due to cancer.
The cat is a little easier, just bossy. But same problem. She follows me around the house and meows, softly but she won't leave me alone.
Right now she is staring at me and probably thinking up some new thing for me to do.
LOL
If you a good idea for a better place to donate to, I would appreciate your thoughts.
Thanks and I am feeling better. I think because of all the Freepers who also love animals and I am getting a ton of Freeper Mail.
One group I will not donate to is The Humane Society of the United States
They do not own any animal shelters.
They are a lobbing organization only.
They are anti-hunting
Anti-Ranching or any other meat production for humans
Very similar to PETA
The Humane Society of the United States, NO WAY!
LOL! I say the same thing to our little rabbit. She really needs to get a job if she wants her life of luxury to continue.
Hah, you think that's bad? Try owning a horse. Talk about demanding and exploitative! Six hundred a month for board, $125 for shoes every five weeks, $300 for just one blanket (and Miss Princess has several for different weather conditions, including a rain sheet, a cooler, a kinda cool weather blanket, a blanket to keep her hind end warm when she's being ridden, a super-cold weather blanket, a cover to wear to keep dust off her at shows, etc. etc. etc.) She has toys, too. She has all sorts of specials wraps and protective devices for her legs. She does not have one single thing that was bought because I felt like spoiling her, only stuff that was bought because I found out the hard way that it was necessary.
None of this includes, of course, the vet bills, the health insurance, or the cost of maintaining a truck and trailer to drag her around. I don't have the truck and trailer yet, just getting ready because I'm tired of paying other people to drag her around when I want to go somewhere. There are special supplements. There are training devices. There are are bridles (she has a dressage bridle, a show bridle, a schooling bridle, and a flat hunting bridle), bits to go with same, and the saddles (two Stubbens, one for dressage and one for hunting, and I'm not even going to tell you about the angst of getting those fitted to her). We have a stack of saddle pads roughly 2 1/2 feet high. Girths, leads, lunge lines, health products, grooming devices, treatments, medications. THe list of purchases doesn't count the time taken off of work to meet the vet or the farrier out at the barn, or the drives to go buy all this crap, or the lessons and training.
She's pretty smug about all of this. She figures she deserves it and gets indignant if she doesn't get it.
I love this horse. I love my two dogs, too. And I don't want the HSUS to spend hundreds of millions to lobby legislators so that I no longer have the right to ride the horse, or hunt, or even own animals.