I'm shocked at the judgmental statements in this thread and the wishing of an unhappy old age on this man. All this based on a very short article. I note that it did say this
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the demands of his job took him away from home too much to properly care for them.
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The thing is that with the current economic situation many people's circumstances have changed and we don't all have as much control as we would wish over how we earn a living. No-one here AFAIK has any extra knowledge of this man's circumstances. He may be pretty hard up and finding it hard to feed two large dogs without taking on jobs where he can find them. With the UK's very restrictive laws on animal travel, it might be virtually impossible for him to take them with him if some of his jobs are out of the country. And boarding kennels are dear.
One can love animals and be anguished for them, but sometimes one has to make difficult decisions.
I've always liked having cats. I had a succession of Burmese cats, some form kittens and some rehomed. But when my last Burmese died I reluctantly said "no more", as my lifestyle involves travel and I didn't want to have to keep on putting a cat into a cattery when I was away. However, in May 2009 I was in France and I learned that France had horrendously high levels of animal abandonment. I went to a local rescue centre, where the cats and dogs were in a pretty deplorable state because the owner got very little financial help from the locals and all she could do was feed them. My husband and I decided that despite our lifestyle problems we could give a cat a better life than it was otherwise likely to get and we adopted two of them.
The two we adopted were skin and bone, full of worms and fleas. We had them vaccinated for everything and dewormed and defleaed. And finally we brought them back to Switzerland. When we are both away they go to a cattery, where they are both well cared for. But we have a terrible problem with one of them. Even after more than two years of living happily in our house he is totally terrified of travelling. He is an intelligent cat but very neurotic. When he is in the car -- going to the cattery, coming back, going to the vet, etc. -- he screams non-stop. We're both travelling tomorrow so he went to the cattery this morning.It was pitiful. He knew what was coming and screamed even before I picked him up to put him in his travelling cage.
Now I have got him, I intend to keep him. He is not a prepossessing animal and I doubt that anyone else would want him. But I do wonder how much I have improved his life. So am I a selfish monster for having adopted him in the first place? Should I stop going to visit my family in England because of him? If I hadn't adopted him, I don't think anyone else would have done and I expect he'd be dead by now. (He had also picked up a permanent viral infection in the rescue centre -- about half the cats had it.)
There is no doubt that people take on animals to satisfy their own selfish needs. We enjoy the companionship of cats and dogs. Perhaps the really moral thing to do would be to stop having pets at all.