Posted on 06/30/2011 3:29:04 PM PDT by NYer
Dogs are often given the title mans best friend. I get that. However, a new title has surfaced which turns ones dog from friend to family. These days people address their dog as baby.
Last December, I received a Christmas card in the mail with someones dog in the spotlight posing as Santa. Cute? Sure until I read the caption which read, Babys First Christmas. This was just the beginning of my observations.
More recently, I met a rather chatty woman in the post office. She was in the process of picking out a Fathers Day card for her son. Her only requirement was that the card include a dog in its design. At first, I thought this to be an innocent request. After conversing longer, she shared that her sons ex-girlfriend (who I gathered used to live with him) left her two dogs with this man after her departure. The mother was duly impressed with her thirty-year old sons ability to take care of these creatures. So much so that that was in fact the motivation behind purchasing a Fathers Day card for him. So, would such a mentality make her a grandmother?
I found that encounter bizarre enough, and did not think it could be topped. I was wrong. In my neighborhood, it is not a rare sight to see folks taking advantage of trails that line the roads. On one occasion, I came across a woman roller-skating. As I passed in my car, I glanced over to see that she had a baby carrier strapped to the front of her chest. I expected to see a child. Instead, a dog was strapped in with its legs dangling and its ears blowing in the wind. I passed in shock.
A few days later, I ran a 5k in some brutal heat. Surely, if anyone had offered me water, I would have happily accepted. That didnt happen, but I did overhear someone ask the couple behind me if their dog could use some water. I glanced behind me to see a bottle of water being held up to the dogs mouth.
It is not just water alone that is being offered to dogs these days. The options are endless from doggie cones at the ice cream shop to the best beef in town in the dinner dish. With so many occurrences of dog doting, perhaps in this culture I am the one who is seen as odd. Minority belief or not, dogs will never be humans, and therefore we should stop pretending that they are.
After so many extreme episodes of canine care, I began to ponder why dogs have been promoted from pet to person. I believe it reveals a truth that is written on the human heart. The truth I am referring to is that humans are wired for self-donating love. Scripture reveals each person is made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 2:27). And who is God, if not Love? (1 John 4:8) The Triune God is a communion of Divine Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Call it a family of three. Richard of St. Victor explained that a requirement of perfect love is sharing with another person, and perfect love between two requires loving for the sake of a third.
All persons are made in the image of the Trinity, and therefore, are also drawn into communion. In marriage, God invites man and woman to model this triune love in their human family. We hear what is written on our soul echoed in Gods command to husband and wife: God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it (Genesis 2:28). The love of spouses continues outside of themselves in the flesh of a human person. For conjugal love naturally tends to be fruitful. A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs forth from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2366).
What does this truth have to do with dogs? If in marriage, husband and wife do not heed to Gods command to be fruitful in the begetting of children, then this hunger to love something outside of themselves, in union with each other, will find false expression. As seen, one example of this is in the adoption of a pet, where an animal gains the privileges of a person. They are seen as the third in this communion of husband and wife. It is a twisted truth, a pacifier. What these couples truly desire is a child. Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the begetting and educating of children. Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute very substantially to the welfare of their parents (Gaudium et Spes 50).
Me, neither! For some inexplicable reason, though, these types of threads always bring out the abusers — those who proudly attest to the horrors they inflicted on their animals. Truly vile. I hope and pray they do not have any animals.
All one has to do to prove this is to watch House Hunters on HGTV. A sizable number of couples state that they are buying a certain house because their dog would like the yard, or the floors would be suitable for their pooch.There are no children.
Showing people getting killed is routine on TV and in the movies, but you’d better not show a dog getting killed. Certainly, our society has its values inverted from what they should be.
Very cool! I'll have to see if there's anything like that in my town!
(still can't watch movie)
Back in the seventies my wife was an Avon representative in a wealthy neighborhood, one of her best customers was the wife of a banker.
The woman was such a gad about that she never knew when she would be home so she always just stopped by our little mobile home village to pick up her order.
She would come in and visit for a while and had a little lap dog, if i was home when she was there i would wrinkle my nose at the dog when she was not looking, the dog would throw a fit and she would kiss it right on the mouth to calm it down.
That really bothered me and when my wife told one of the neighbor ladies about it the lady told me that she did not believe in kissing dogs either, but why does it bother you so much? i replied don,t dogs still eat manure and dead things> she replied ,no dogs are not like they were when we were kids these little house dogs have kind of evolved out of that kind of stuff.
Well, that word evolved really got me, evolution, meaning no God, if she was right, and she seemed to be then there was no God and my faith was in something that did not exist.
In the following weeks i became very depressed, i felt i never had anything to live for, nothing to care about, no reason to live, my wife and my friends were worried about me,
Then one day as i was driving along a country lane on the very road that the banker and his wife lived on i noticed that a herd of cattle had been driven down that road a little earlier, and there that little dog was, right in the middle of a cow pile.
You can imagine the gratitude and joy that rose up in me, God was telling me in plain words that dogs had not evolved since i was a kid and that there is a difference between man and animals, i was so happy that i felt like kissing that little dog.
I work with childless, husbandless women that refer to their dogs as their children (and one of them bears a striking resemblance to her pet). These freaks take off for days when their “children” die (regardless of what’s happening in the real world), and are always vocally opposed to any company picnic.
They are the last vestiges of post-Christianity America, and are being displaced by Latino immigrants and those Americans that value children. In fifty years all that will be left are a string of abandoned pet cemeteries. FWIW, I love animals so much I think humans should leave them be; my wife’s family is Spanish, and they don’t have a word for “pet”.
I had a friend with a dog that would bring him a beer when he got home. It would open the fridge grab a beer and would take to him in the living room. My friend would joke if he could just teach the dog to open it for him.
The good thing about dogs versus children is that when dogs become e teenagers, they die
“Why, though?”
Western Civilization is dying out (though not altogether); many family trees are coming to an end, while the meek inherit the earth.
I used to work for a man that bought sliced roast beef from a deli next door for his 2 dogs (he and his wife had no children, and at least he didn’t want any). I now work with a man who has health insurance for a dog; very creepy (he has grown children, but still - there are people who could use that better than animals).
Mine will in September when both kids go away to school.
He doesn’t listen to me either.
“I know people who buy presents for thier dogs but they will not lift a finger to visit or help thier elderly parents”
The worst offenders I know (in terms of childless dog freaks) are incapable of normal adult relationships of any kind. I don’t just mean romantically; they are incapable of dealing rationally with superiors, peers, subordinates, neighbors, etc.; I believe they are attracted to the fact that the animals seem to agree with them (by not disagreeing).
I have heard that the Catahoula Leopard hound and Ridgebacks are related.
The Ridgeback is from an indigenous African dog that was bred with Bloodhounds, Greyhounds, Terriers, and Foxhounds by the Dutch (if I recall correctly) settlers of South Africa.
“I believe they dont want to have the responsibility of raising a child, but do want to have a baby.”
They are also in a position where many men won’t oblige on the “baby” part (for countless reasons).
People who are really selfish and self-centered don’t have time for other living things. I tend to agree with you.
“People who dont want children should not be made to feel guilty for preferring the reduced commitment of owning a pet to parenting a child.”
I absolutely agree; sometimes it is a better choice. I just can’t stand people equating the value of a dog’s life to that of a person.
Pet insurance is actually a reasonable thing for people who can’t afford extravagant vet bills.
Butch, Tweety, and Sylvester? We all know how that works out...
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