Posted on 06/04/2011 12:32:32 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Dogs and cats joined us as symbiotes a long time back; we made most of them dependent pets and now that they can't survive on their own. Now we're throwing them under the bus. The termination is the -- probably -- unintended result of SPCA, PETA, innumerable tender-hearted or at least vote-hungry elected city and county officials and decades of anthropomorphized Disney creatures but it's no less terminal for that. We're eliminating these critters in order to save them. It isn't that we love our pets less; rather that we love Gaia more. And she doesn't poop inconveniently.
This ending has been sneaking up on us for a while. On the farm, dogs and cats had only to please -- or at least, not annoy -- the farmer. Once they started turning up in cities, that changed. Dog bites, rabies, barking, and poop annoyed besides mail carriers, increasing numbers of voters; politicians took notice. How cats were unlucky enough to be sucked in is less obvious but they were; possibly another case of the wrong place at the wrong time. Or maybe it was the songbirds.
First, licenses were required, with fees to pay for city animal services. A bureaucracy appeared in local governments and various volunteer groups were formed, all increasing the available money and political interest in pets. As city dwellers grew wealthier, veterinary practitioners added pets to their formerly mostly farm practices and joined the growing cadre of lobbyists.
The licenses were the first sign that pets were no longer private business. Euthanasia of strays came too. Government regulation of dog and cat fertility clarified who was in charge for any doubters; spay and neuter laws proliferated. Declining numbers of farms didn't care anymore; increasing numbers of city folk did. To please them, places like New York City mandated the famous Pooper Scoopers along with leash laws. Computer technology brought the embedded chip to replace the metal license tag that once jingled on dog collars.
That covers a lot that's happened to pets fairly quickly. At one time, a schoolboy might have been accompanied by his dog anywhere but school; it was expected. No one expected a leash; the dog ran free, always keeping his boy as the center of his explorations. He wasn't neutered, though females, less common, were often spayed after a litter or two. That, please note, was in residential neighborhoods, not only farms. Today, things have changed. Those changes affect more than dogs; young boys' unsupervised wanderings for hours at a time, usual then, are pretty scarce among today's kids, let alone the dogs.
In recent years, those paying attention can see a trend: Society's room for pets has been shrinking, with government enforcing the shrinkage. After licensing, with the dogcatcher, euthanasia and sterilization in place, laws were added forbidding tying a dog in a yard. In Albuquerque, an annual $150 permit is required for that and a trolley must be provided. A litter requires a permit too, for another $150 and there's a cap. Public parks now provide fenced exercise yards for dogs, the only places they are allowed to be unleashed in public.
The future is coming clear in two new laws: In Albuquerque, it's now unlawful to leave a dog alone for very long. The cost of maintaining a dog is moving toward parity with that of maintaining a kid; not only with needing dog-sitters but with health care; health insurance for dogs and cats is a growing market. A recent vet's bill for diagnosing and euthanizing an elderly pooch, a two-hour office visit mostly spent waiting, was $300.
The second and most unmistakable signal is laws popping up around the country simply banning the retail sale of dogs and cats. Examples are Austin, Texas, and West Hollywood, California. The San Francisco city fathers have been considering a similar ban, so has the state of New Jersey and the City of El Paso. Some of these include small animals and birds in the ban.
Most of this has been a response to lobbying from animal welfare folk whose stated concerns center on the miseries of abused, abandoned and inadequately cared-for pets plus protection of the earth from feral cat fecundity; the irony of saving the pets by legislating them out of their habitat doesn't seem to be recognized.
Our pets won't go extinct; cats will take care of themselves and dogs will continue as pets for those who can afford them and as workers where their work is economically justified. But it seems clear that middle-class family pets are following the stay-at-home mom to the museum and if you think about it, for similar reasons. From a quick look at things, kids might be next...
Its because the vet bills are so darn expensive
Stay at home Moms are being sent to a museum? Why didn’t anyone send me this memo? On a side note, I have noticed TONS of dogs, puppies, cats, kittens on Craigslist. Many are up for adoption as a result of foreclosure or the owner losing their jobs.
Naturally this is from an urban-centric POV and who GAS about them anyways?!
We have (think, think, no wait, that died ...) eleven pets, from the large dog to the small fish.
Is there a free bus ride to that museum? Where are we going to sleep?
Not us, either. Our Border Collie runs the show here. Most of the kids I tutor have dogs at their homes, too. A lot of them have stay at home moms as well.
I’m putting in a grant request to follow up on this hooey.
“... where are we going to sleep?”
It could be fun, Tax-chick. I’ll bring some movies, popcorn, nail polish... heck, we’ll make it a girl’s weekend. Not 100% sure if our houses will be standing when we get back to the husband and kids, though. LOL!
All of this nonsense will blow away in the fresh conservative wind when we take our country away from the pernicious creeps who cheated and lied their way into power.
Pets are beneficial to people, so they must be eliminated, but we must fight this risible agenda.
I’m not sure that dogs aren’t essential to a civilized society.
“rather that we love Gaia more.”
What the hell is that?
Living where I do, I encounter lots of lefties (pity me). The truly staunch libs do not have pets. I have always wondered about that...is it because they can’t be focused on anything but themselves? Or are they so miserable that since pets make others happy they MUST be banned?
The idea that the average person can’t take good care of pets without government help is ludicrous. I have had people tell me that if there is such a thing as reincarnation they want to come back as a cat that lives with me.
Brings back pleasant memories of childhood. There were always dogs roaming the neighborhood of my childhood and none of them had leashes. In fact, the only people that seemed to use leashes on their dogs were little old ladies with poodles - the kind of little old ladies who would knit sweaters for their dogs too.
Growing up around dogs, I was able to learn the ways of dogs and how to handle just about any "dog" situation. These days, you have a generation of kids who are scared to death of dogs on the loose and have no idea what to do if one comes up to them. Worst thing you can do is run when a strange dog approaches and yet this is the reaction of most kids today because they just don't know any better.
Another irritating trend I see with today's dog owners are those little blue "poop" bags they carry around with them. I go hiking in the woods with my dog and I see these blue baggies all over the place. The dog owners will actually scoop the poop into these bags, tie them off, and leave them on the ground! What the hell sense does that make? If a dog poops in the woods, it's gone in a few days. But in those blue baggies, it will hang around for years.
What’s a POV?
Awwwwwwwwww...:)
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