For some reason, the first line of my post got erased. I meant to write, “Anything would be better than the way they handled it for the OLD MAN, not the cat.” Read the context of the statement you yanked out of an earlier post and plopped down to prove your point. The way the thing went down for the old man was pretty fucking horrendous. My god.
Aw, give me a fucking break. Cats do give a frog’s fat ass where their owners are. You think after 17 years, the cat was completely indifferent to the old man? Then you really are a fucking moron. I have enough anecdotal evidence in my experience alone to drive everyone out of this thread, so I’ll spare you, but any cat owner knows this is a bullshit position to take and that you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Being traumatized does not require great emotional depth nor ability for advanced reasoning. Missing a companion of 17 years doesn’t demand higher caliber thought. It’s a pretty basic reaction to an enormous change and loss of familiar family members. I’m not projecting shit. Ask your vet if you don’t believe me.
No, I think he’s saying the Kaddish. :rolleyes:
You feel for the cat. We get it. That’s understandable. You have a big heart.
For cats.
But why must you hang the kids in the process? Have you no sympathy for them? Why must there be a villain? Once again, I ask: Can you imagine no scenario in which the kids had no other choice than to do what they did?
And this time, please answer.
Oh, bite me. I feel just as bad for the old man, so don’t try to paint me as someone who only cares about cats and not for people. I think the old man and the cat have had their lives permanently and drastically altered for the worse. The kids are likely upset about their father but they have not experienced the level of trauma of Gramps and Moses.
I can imagine many scenarios where getting rid of the cat before Dad came home from the hospital was more expedient for them. I’m sure some dire scenario could be concocted where they absolutely had no other choice, but I’m of the mind that people almost ALWAYS have a choice. There is usually more than one possible way to handle any given situation, and from what I know of the this one, they didn’t handle it well. Maximal consideration was clearly not given to the old man’s feelings. The cat, as I said, is secondary because his health and physical well-being are at least being taken care of.
If the above answer doesn’t satisfy you, we may just have to agree to disagree.
I never said that. From what I can tell, though, you feel for cats and old men, but you feel nothing for the families of those that suffer severe medical conditions.
I remember when my great grandmother had a stroke. Yes, we were “likely upset.” I remember when my grandmother got lung cancer. We were a “tad concerned.” I remember when my girlfriend’s mother had 5 heart attacks in 2 months. We were a “bit miffed.”
Come on. Don’t minimize what the family is going through. They’re going through hell right now, and yet you seem wholly unconcerned. Or too stupid to realize it.
It does not. You have not given a plausible scenario, other than implying that the family took the lazy way out.
So let me give you one: Perhaps the family thought that taking care of the cat would become too much of a burden on gramps, and so took that burden away. And perhaps they were concerned enough about the cat that they’d rather see it in a shelter than under the “care” of a disabled old man. And perhaps, with all of the arrangements they had to make, they dealt with the cat situation in the only available timeslot they had.
Plausible? Naw, I like your scenario much better: They sat around and hatched evil schemes to make both gramps and Moses suffer more. Grieving families tend to do stuff like that.
I feel for them but not enough to excuse their lack of regard for the old man and the cat.
Would you do to your relatives what these people did to their dad? Your feelings of concern towards Dad, would they involve consideration of his feelings about his cat? If my father were to have a stroke, taking care of his cat would be an integral part of taking care of his needs, both physical and emotional. I can’t imagine a situation for me, myself, where I’d handle it the way these people did.
You and I have no idea what they’re going through. I know an old man dragged his ass to the SPCA to say goodbye to his cat and that he was apparently upset about the whole situation, which is what led to the shelter head’s sentiments of dislike towards the family. Thus, I’m directing my concern toward the old man and the cat.
WHY DIDN’T THEY LET HIM SAY GOODBYE? Why didn’t they pay the cat’s fee?
Yeah, 'caus that’s what I said, that they were being malicious and evil. Uh-huh. I was getting shit from VegemiteMoose for assuming the old man was a good guy and I had to admit that maybe he was a bad father and thus deserved the treatment his family was giving him, and now I’m getting shit for feeling the old man got the shaft. Can’t win for losing around here.
Or, instead of leaving the cat at a shelter and not telling the owner, they could have called a vet and found a place to board the cat until a decision could be made based on the owner’s ability to care for the cat.
Or, they could have asked the shelter to board the cat until a decision could be made based on the owner’s ability to care for the cat.
Or, they could have called a pet-sitting service to temporarily care for the cat until a decision could be made based on the owner’s ability to care for the cat.
It’s a cat, not a baby. So long as someone put food and water down and cleaned the litter box every couple of days, the cat would have been fine and the owner could have been involved in the decision-making.
Imagine you are the old man. The above is your children’s attitude towards you. They are so mindful of your feelings of dignity and self-determination that they take all your free will out of the equation and make personal, emotional decisions about your companion of 17 years. They don’t consult you, even though you are eventually well enough to able to get to the shelter yourself and have the mental cogency to pay the cat’s fees. You might have come to the conclusion yourself that you couldn’t keep Moses, but with a little time, you could have re-homed him yourself, with the appropriate goodbyes said, maybe even through the auspices of the SPCA or your cat’s vet. But no, your kids swept in and made all these decisions for you. I’m sure that made the guy feel fan-fucking-tastic.
You can say all you want that these kids were trying to do their dad a favor, but the fact that he came in himself to say goodbye tells me that he didn’t like how the situation went and wasn’t prepared to let go when his kids did, or was he prepared for the way they did it. Yes, I care more about his feelings than his kids’ in this situation.
You condemned them to hell. Interesting way of showing your concern.
You can’t? I just gave you a scenario wherein they acted out of concern for both the cat and the old man.
Yes, I do. I said so in my last post.
When my girlfriend’s mother suffered some ill health a few years ago, my girlfriend and her sister went through her apartment and took or trashed all of her posessions. Robbed the old woman blind, you might say.
Was that cruel and self-centered?
To an outside observer, yes. To a moron who couldn’t be bothered to find out the facts, certainly.
I DON’T KNOW. And neither do you.
But since you’re the one asking the question, why don’t you answer it?
Uh-huh. Pretty much.
You honestly think that’s why you’re getting shit from me?
REALLY?
And you know for a fact that the old man was conscious and cogent at the time they took the cat away? Who the fuck gave you a copy of his medical chart?
Hindsight is 20/20. It’s easy to think of all the more reasonable alternatives when you weren’t there in the first place.
At the risk of sounding like a Pollyana, we can make something good come of this if it forces us to think about what might become of our pets should something happen to us.
Make arrangements as best you can for someone to care for your pets in the event that you’re no longer able to. Do it today.
I’m sorry, I didn’t finish reading this thread. I got about halfway through Ruby’s assinine “the cat’s more important than the humans” BS, and gagged.
However, regarding the feline family gracing your garden - do you have the resources to have the family spayed/neutered? Many people like having cats around to counter any vermin (mice, rats, moles, etc.). I work with a group in the Long Beach area who could help you with this. I also have ties to the South Bay area rescue efforts. In the valleys, tho, you’re on your own.
to reply to the OP:
Ruby, you’re full of shit!!!
You have no evidence whatsoever that the guy’s kids acted with evil intent.
Do you know for a fact that the doctors said “Yeh, he’ll be up and around in no time” as opposed to “I don’t think he’ll ever really regain conciousness.”
Do you know how long the kids cared for the cat?
Do you know (not guess) that the cat was taken to the shelter out of malice.
Could it not be possible that the cat (deprived of its human companion of 17 years) refused to eat, and the kids felt that shelter personnel would be able to address that issue better than they?
I speak as a cat lover, fosterer, and advocate. (Credtials provided upon request)
HYPERBOLE. Look into it.
I don’t see it that way. I see them showing concern for their own expediency over the old man’s feelings.
What fact are there to make this Ok? Fill me in. Fight my ignorance, as it were.
I’m getting shit from you because you are seeing things from the kids’ POV and I’m seeing them from the old man’s. That’s the bottom line. You think they were justified and I can’t imagine how they could be. I wouldn’t do that to my father. That’s all.
Please cite where I said that.
So’s your mother. :rolleyes:
Please cite where I said that. Colossal insensitivity and expediency, yes. Evil, no.
If you were the cat lover you say you are, surely you would know that a cat who is not eating is NOT FUCKING LIKELY to start eating again after being put in the shelter. We have a lot of cats who come in and refuse to eat who were eating fine before they were taken out of their homes. It takes quite a bit of doing to get them to eat again.
Out your ass, you speak.
I’m not sure where to start to reply.
"So’s your mother. :rolleyes: "
AKKK! not sure what I hit to make that post. I’ll start over again in a few minutes.
Backpedalling. Stop it.
It may very well be that. It’s one possible scenario out of many. Is your brain so small that you can only entertain one? Why are you so attached to this particular explanation?
I would, but it’s clear you’re not interested in facts.
Not quite. I’m trying to see things from everyone’s POV. You’re digging your heels into one narrowly biased opinion.
“Backpedalling” may have been the wrong word. “Stupidity” is probably closer. 