[geeks] Re: Breeding, etc.

[Robert J. Slover]

Greetings, Amy

: > I stayed out of the cat discussion even though I think they're a waste
: > of space in general.  
:
: mmm, i disagree with this but i understand that some people just dont
: like animals. much like some people cant abide kids. 

I did qualify the statement with 'in general' (I've seen one or two
exceptions) and said absolutely nothing about disliking animals.  Quite
the opposite.  I just hold the opinion (through experience) that cats make
poor pets.  I just buried our male this past winter, and his sister the
prior May (evidently a genetic thing, their liver and kidneys stopped
working, even though they spent their lives on low-ash cat food, and the
last few years on special diets).  I spent the last six months giving IV's
to the male once or twice a week, as needed, to help his kidneys out.   I
spotted these two in the Humane Shelter ~11 years ago, due to be PTS the
next day.  Up to that we were going to bring home 'Sh*thead', a yellow
tabby missing a front paw, but he still had 2 weeks on the chart.  Briefly
we had a Russian Blue kitten that rode home in our engine compartment with
his brother.  I spent $400 on the brother but the vet could not pull him
through.  The survivor went to a good home.  Anyway, as far as cats go the
two we most recently had were the best I've ever seen, the breed is
'Ragdoll'.  They made my wife happy, and made my sinuses bleed daily for
over a decade despite my prescriptions.  Regardless of that, once
committed, I would not have gotten rid of them or slacked in their care.
I've had others, Snowball, my dad found in the winter 1976 and brought
home.  Snowball was declawed already.  Snowball got out one year and found
out she could not climb out of the reach of or defend herself from a
larger cat that killed her.  For this reason I've never believed in
removing a cat's natural defenses, despite the suffering our furniture and
carpeting have been subject to.  That said, I've never found cats very
enjoyable.  If the choice were mine alone I would never choose one as 
a pet. 
  
: i think a great deal of the problem stems from the fact that, once you
: have children, it's no longer about you anymore. some parents get it and
: some dont (most dont nowadays). the parents who dont are the ones that
: wind up raising small tornados that destroy everything and anything
: within range. 'uncontrollable', if you will.

This I agree with completely.

: parenting a child and parenting a pet arent very different. it irritates
: me to no end when sanctimonious parents praise their children-bearing
: abilities and say its absolutely positively so much better and far
: beyond ever raising a pet. these are the same folks who have never taken
: a 100+ lb dog from puppyhood through maturity _with the same intensity_
: that they would give a fruit from their loins. its the same
: discliplinary factor, the same responsibility factor, the same attention
: factor. the only difference is you dont have to teach a pet which fork
: to use or how to tie their shoes. 

You might rightfully accuse me of hypocrisy if I fell into that category.
My dog is a bit smaller (only 120 lbs, she's a Malamute) and I'll admit
this is a lot closer, yet still not close to the same thing.  She's 10+
now, slowing down a bit but still a perpetual 3-year old.  I'd put a
picture up but having just changed jobs a couple of months back haven't
set up a new web page yet.  We rescued her as a 'teenage' dog (7 months
old) from a pet store chain where she'd been ordered but never picked up.
I bought her at cost plus the store owner's cost in shots and whatnot.
The money came from some contract Pascal programming I was doing on the
side...so her name is 'Pascal'.  I like smart and willful dogs, and she's
that in spades.  She was an indoor dog up until 4 years ago when she
decided that cats were edible.  She'd lived inside with the cats for
almost 6 years then one night had a squabble with the female cat under the
dining room table.  I rescued the cat, scolded the dog, and chalked it up
to 'she had it coming' since the cat had sometimes slashed at the dog
unprovoked in a fit of meanness.  The dog did have a bleeding nose.  A few
days later, Pascal was watching Loki (the male cat) walk across the floor,
glared intently, then dived across the floor and caught the cat by the slack.
I had him out of her mouth before she managed a full shake but she'd
already separated the skin on his back from the muscle.  The only
explanation I could ever come up with is that one of the neighborhood cats
had taken to tormenting her (sitting just out of reach) while she was out
on her runner.  I'd observed this and had shooed the thing away but never
expected her to snap.  I consulted a biologist my mother-in-law knows at
Wolf Park who also trains Malamutes.  From the description (direct attack,
no warning, growling or appearance of aggression) she said this was
predatory behavior, that the cat was food.  Pascal has a dog house now the
size of a lawn shed and an 80' run.  With the cats gone we'll probably
bring her back in, since she's never made any other threat to anything
(the squirrels even eat out of her food dish). 
 
I have never been without a pet.  Even in college, I had rats (Templeton
and Algernon, rescued leftovers from a psych lab) and growing up we had
all manner of beasties.  My mother has a knack with injured animals, and
people would bring things to us.  We had racoons, geese, pheasants, a fox,
squirells, opossum, a deer, a sparrow hawk, an owlet, a chipping sparrow,
a duck, rabbits (tame and wild, at one time 42 of them) and various normal
critters like guinea pigs and hamsters, beagles, bassett hounds, a coon 
dog, a bird dog, a black labrador and a border collie (leaving out the
reptiles and many other birds). All of the wild critters ended up back in
the wild (except George, the deer, who ended up in a small zoo because he
was too tame).  I like animals, and I think I have sufficient background
with them to compare the experience of raising a pet to that of raising my
kid in a meaningful way.  They are definitely not the same.  You can
disagree, but please don't accuse me of being 'sanctimonious' when I make
that statement.  There is nothing hypocritical in making a statement you
believe to be true, _particularly_ based on experience.  I was reacting to
the spate of posts dismissing parenthood as some contemptable occupation,
and putting it on a level below good animal husbandry.  Not one of those
people claimed to be a parent.  The only other person I saw post in
defense of parenthood was Tim, and that was after my own post.  So I
offered my opinion.  Now I've defended the opinion by offering some
indication that it has a basis.  Beyond that I'll bow out, since I've
never seen meaningful progress made when a group of people disagree over
an opinion.

One last thing, I can make a simple suggestion to stop people from
offering their sympathy when told you will have no children.  Instead of
saying you can't, just say 'It isn't on our wish list.'  My wife and I
left that question open...we knew we wanted to wait at least 5 years, and
she wasn't sure (leaning to 'no').  She changed her mind, but answers like
that stop the questions short early on, and pretty soon they stop asking.
Don't give an answer that invites sympathy or discussion.  It isn't
anybody else's business anyway.


Regards,


--Robert