Tomorrow (or today, depending on when I get around to posting this), is International Homeless Animal Day. For one day, all the self-involved political pundits of the democratic and republican party are going to shut their mouths long enough to do something wonderful for the least of these. For one whole day, I won’t have to see, read or hear a single comment about Obama or Romney, and how they are going to either save the universe or destroy it, as we, instead, will focus all of our energies on just a few of this world’s neglected creatures.
Haha. That’s rich.
Never happen.
You guys and gals . . . what with your favorite political messiahs and all.
I don’t want to begin this post on a negative note (too late?); I’m going to try to fight the urge. I’ll just ask a few questions and then you can answer them.
Given that there are somewhere between 3-4 million cats and dogs euthanized at shelters every year (I’m told that’s one every eight seconds, but my math is rather suspect, so I don’t know), why do people continue to purchase cats and dogs from breeders/pet stores? It’s an honest question of which I hope you will respond. After all, doesn’t it make sense to just rescue the ones in need of homes rather than buying from the kinds of places partially responsible for the over-population of animals in the first place? That would seem to be a logical move. It would also be a move predicated on hospitality to those in need. We’re talking several hundred thousand cats and dogs euthanized every month while we continue to purchase animals elsewhere. I don’t get it. It just seems so, well . . . obvious. Clearly, I am missing something. Help me find the disconnect. It’s not that I don’t have some theories, of course I do. For instance, one of them is that I think it’s intimately connected to the very sort of ‘pure blood’ ideologies that fueled (and continues to fuel) certain racist and classist forms of thinking. That is, I think that what drives some people to buy an animal with all of its ‘legitimate paperwork’ (“it’s official, you’re a dog . . . and I have the papers to prove it”) is similar to why some people fear miscegenation (and, of course, how that, historically, connects to classism).
Another theory is a bit more charitable, and it’s that most people are ignorant of puppy mills, the issue of over-population, the neglecting of ‘pets’, or, simply, that they don’t need to pay $1,500 for an animal that they could rescue from a gas chamber or pentobarbital via the non-complex process of adoption. Well, now you know. And here’s Petfinder to help get ya’ started.
No more ignorance for you, my friends!
“I gotta go with Tripp and God on this one. You guys are dicks.”
My last theory is that, generally speaking, we humans have a tendency to be a tad bit, um . . . how do I put this gently? Um . . . narcissistic. Yeah, let’s go with that word (my fiancee made me change my original word selection). We need to know that “our” animals have all of the proper bloodlines befitting of our awesome selves. Because, you know, having a pet is far more about our wants than the animal’s needs.
[Given that the Bible claims that we humans are ‘wicked from birth’ and that our ‘every inclination from youth is to evil’, I don’t think the above theory (with my original word choice) is either hyperbolic or pessimistic. That’s what we call Biblical realism, baby! And I should know–not all of our creatures are rescues. We have a gecko and a horse that were not adopted. We are, indeed, on this score, rather impulsive, narcissistic, and, oftentimes, unthinking. But, in our defense . . . well . . . we have no defense that’s, ultimately, not rooted in selfishness. So, hooray for the hope that confession makes one a little less hypocritical!]
Granted, I may have taken a bit of a negative tone after all. Then again, killing, I mean . . . er, um, “putting to sleep”, 4 million animals a year because we continue to buy cats and dogs rather than adopting/rescuing them is negative, too. So there.
In the meantime, click on the link to discover some things you can do to celebrate International Homeless Animal Day.
Hugs and kisses to all of my animal-friendly peeps.
Ya’ assholes. I mean, narcissists. =)
[By the way, the caption in the above photo is a clue to solving the acronym in the title of the post. Good luck to all of my amateur sleuths!]