My opinion exactly.
I have five cats. Three are oldsters and sick, and two are youngsters. I am going to be moving cross country next year so that I can go back to school and pursue a long-term relationship. I will most likely be giving away at least two of the cats to family members (the two younguns) so that I can live in an apartment. I can’t afford to buy a house (I wouldn’t want to even if I could), and five cats is too many for an apartment.
It’s not an easy decision, but it’s also not something where I feel like I’m being a bad person. My cats are a big part of my life, but they are not my whole life.
My opinion is that the human commitment to a pet is only that we commit to taking reasonable care of it: safe shelter, food, water, medical care when necessary. Is is not breaking that commitment to find someone else to take on the pet in the event that you become unable to.
I once lived in a rented house with two cats and a dog. It was really a bit too small, but I couldn’t move because I couldn’t find a rental that would agree to let me have three animals. Then I got a second dog and found myself in a 1-bedroom house with four furry critters. A coworker asked me, “What are you going to do if you meet the man of your dreams and he’s not into pets?” I replied, “The man of my dreams* is* into pets, so that’s not what I’m concerned about.” Eventually, I just bought a house so that I could have as many critters as I wanted.
I made my plans based on what I could accommodate, given the commitment I’d already made to myself to take responsibility for these animals. I have limited my travel over the years, and cancelled trips because I couldn’t find a dog or catsitter. I adopted these animals with the understanding that sometimes I would have to make choices like that. Or choices like: buy groceries, or pay the vet to save the cat? (I paid the vet. But I live alone and do not have other humans’ needs to consider.)
Contrast that with another story. Years ago, a coworker wanted me to take on a third dog. Her adult daughter had a dog already, then had a kid. After the kid was about 2-3, they decided to get another puppy. THEN, these people decided it was too much to handle and would I take on the new puppy?
My answer was “Hell no. Someone else’s irresponsibility is not my problem to solve. I’m sorry for the puppy, but I’m not the asshole who took on responsibility for a critter knowing full well what that would entail, especially layered in with a toddler and another dog.”
It’s one thing to take on a pet and then have your circumstances change, so you have to make arrangements to ensure that someone* else* is willing to be responsible for your responsibility. It’s a whole other thing, IMO, to have fully informed consent, knowing exactly what taking care of a pet involves and how that would layer into all your other work, travel, & familoy responsibilities, and then just change your mind later because, well, you just changed your mind.
The latter gets labeled “irresponsible” by me, and possibly also untrustworthy. In my example above, that woman could not even be trusted to honor a commitment she made when she adopted the puppy, I don’t see how I could trust her to ever really mean anything she said after that. I judge people based on how they treat service staff, pets, old people, and kids.
Like I said, it’s one thing to not really understand what you’re getting yourself into and I don’t fault people who make every effort to make the situation right when they realize they are in over their heads. But I lose all respect for people who treat pets (and waitstaff and old people and kids) as if they are disposable. Makes me think that people like that don’t value life much.
Personally, it seems to be true that cats are easier to give away than dogs.
The only animal I’ve ever given to someone because they clearly loved her more, was a cat, and I never had another after that.
I could never give away my dog with the realisation when I got her as a puppy 13 years ago that I was making a long-term commitment . Even the decision to get her took 6 months. My life is accordingly adjusted to accommodate her; she is to me, family.
I appreciate that people have differing viewpoints in terms of human vs animal - which is more important; what emotions may or may not be felt. I think that what it comes down to is the bond you have - and whether or not it can be truly broken. Commitment to me is simply that - a bond that cannot be broken; not because of a sense of obligation, but because it ruptures your heart to think of it.
I don’t think giving a pet away to a good home makes you a bad person. Some people are just more pragmatic than others. I think that not caring where your pet goes, and the decision not being a difficult one makes you either a very bad pet owner, or simply someone who’s never found their ‘heart animal’.
For many of the issues outlined in this thread, I do not currently own any pets. I had numerous cats and dogs growing up, but currently do not, and have no desire for any pets.
It’s hard to make an exact line where a person is bad, but it does exist. Someone who treats pets as disposable amusements is, in my mind, a bad person. Further, the manner in which you rehome a pet is important.
There’s a huge dichotomy between someone making a heart-wrenching decision to rehome a pet and someone getting a pet that they have no intention of taking care of for a lifetime then dumping it.
Sometimes things happen. If your kid gets a serious allergy to cats, or if you have to move out of the country, or if extended unemployment causes you to lose your home, or all kinds of unforeseen circumstances occur, it can sometimes make sense – and even be the most compassionate solution – to rehome the pet. On the other hand, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for someone who rents apartments and signs a lease on a new place that doesn’t allow their pet. I can’t understand why it’d even be a consideration to look at apartments that wouldn’t accept your pets unless you’ve come under unforeseen financial hardship. That’s one of the reasons that I wouldn’t allow myself to get a cat or a dog until I bought my house; it really limits your options in the area, and I wasn’t sure I could financially managed the increase in rental costs that’d come with getting a pet in the area where I wanted to live (and I wanted to avoid a lengthy commute).
I ended up getting my dog from someone who had a difficult situation. They had gotten a new pug puppy and then found out their existing older dog had cancer. The dog was apparently in a lot of pain and also hated the puppy, and wouldn’t let the puppy eat or drink water. I think they made the right decision to rehome but honestly they probably shouldn’t have gotten the puppy to begin with. They were in a very small house with three dogs and a bunch of cats, and the poor puppy was neglected and thin. He’s taken months to not run away if I come into the room while he’s eating, and he’s still shy enough that the cat can bully him out of his food if I don’t separate them at mealtimes.
If it came down to it and I really had to rehome my dog and/or my cat, I’d do everything in my power to get them rehomed myself, ideally with people I know. I wouldn’t just dump them in a shelter unless I had no other choice; I’d try to put up ads (through Craigslist, for example). I’d be especially worried for my cat. The poor guy already spent 8 months in a shelter because he’s just a plain old black cat. Oh, and he needs the sensitive formula food, which is apparently a deal-breaker for most people (I just buy the Purina stuff, it works fine and it’s not expensive). He’d need a helping hand to get adopted out.
I have absolutely zero sympathy for anyone who ever just lets their pet loose, though. That happens around here - people drive out into the country to ‘free’ their dogs or cats. It’s incredibly cruel and I’d have my pets euthanized before I ever considered it.
Through a bit of unusual circumstances, I finally found my ex-roommate’s pet snake, who’d been hiding in my kitchen without my knowledge for the last few months. Since the ex-roomie is now half a country away, I’m caring for the animal until it can be shipped to her. When I told the story to my dad, he asked me why I didn’t just toss the snake out into the park by my home. After all, it’s a snake! That’s where snakes live! Yes, dad, a snake raised entirely in captivity is going to be able to survive in a suburban park. :smack:
So if someone got pregnant at an age they couldn’t handle it and didn’t want to get an abortion so they gave the kid up for adoption, does that mean they can never try and have a child at anbother point in their life? Because that’s the kind of person they are?
I disagree with that thought process for a pet as well as the scenario I outlined.
Sometimes life changes and you cannot handle the responsibility of the animal you once could. Just as the mother shows a lot of love for the child to make sure it has a good home, a person who gives away an animal to a good home is showing how much they care. And I don’t think it precludes them being able to have a pet again when things change for the better.
Inapt analogy. You can be in a situation where you get pregnant without meaning to (and if you do, and don’t want to be a mother but also don’t want an abortion, and the guy who impregnated you also doesn’t want to be a father, then you should most definitely give the baby up for adoption).
But you can’t really wind up in a situation where you inadvertently adopted a pet without meaning to.
If you deliberately and voluntarily go through the whole process for adopting a pet (OR a child, for that matter), and subsequently decide that you want to relinquish the pet or child just because it’s inconvenient for your lifestyle…
…Then yes, you should be pretty damn cautious about assuming responsibility for another pet or child in the future. 'Cuz you’ve obviously got some potential commitment issues.
No, but the opposite can happen which results in the same thing, doesn’t it?
And neither situation should preclude future children or pet ownership, should it?
And actually, I know someone who did “inadvertantly” adopted a pet when he reluctantly felt obligated to try and keep the pet of his fiancee who moved out abruptly, leaving him with more than just an unpaid electic bill.
After valiently trying to keep the animal (a dog) it proved to be too much for him to handle responsibly so he had to give it away to someone else.
I’m of two minds on this.
Firstly, I do believe that sometimes you need to give a pet away through no fault of your own. One of the most lovely cats I’ve ever met was adopted by my husband and I at our local shelter. He was 12 at the time and really a wonderful, friendly, lovely cat. (Bye Taz - RIP). The reason he was left is that his previous owners had to move and couldn’t find pet accomodation. Usually that sounds like bunk, but there was a situation locally a few years ago where downtown buildings had sky rocketed in value and land lords were doubling and trippling rents with 3 months notice in order to force current tenants out. There are no laws in Alberta to prevent this, so there were a lot of people scrambling for a new home. Coupled with a .5% vacancy rate, it was VERY hard to find an afordable home that would take pets (or children, for that matter). I have no problem at all with the people who dropped off Taz at the shelter - I sincerely believe that they had no other choice, and he was a lovely kitty that we loved having.
Our other kitty is a bit different. He belonged to my best friend and when he was 18 she and her husband built a new house. Well, they decided that the new house had to be cat free - the why is still vague to me but I know she feels like a bit of a douche about the whole thing. I agreed to take him in thinking that an 18 year old cat couldn’t have much life left in him particularly since he had been deteriorating for a while. Instead he moved in with me and my doggie and he’s like a new man and is also now 22. Now, friend DOES take care of all of his vet bills (although they are very minimal) and she knows I would take very good care of him, so I can’t fault her too much although I do find the new-house = no-cat reasoning to be a bit iffy.
I also had a bunny that I gave away. Originally I had two bunnies and one of them died - just dropped dead, which apparently isn’t that uncommon. The remaining bunny never really got over it, and he hated me quite a bit. I realize that sounds dumb, but he really didn’t like me much. I would hop up to me and I would try to pet him and he would bite me - he REAAAAALY was not an Alice fan. My then roommate started dating a fellow and that bunny LOVED him. When Tony would come over, he would lie on the ground and the rabbit would hop over, jump on his tummy, cuddle up to him, etc, etc. Tony was equally enamoured and would bunny sit when I was away. Every time I would return and get bunny back he would be listless and not eat well, etc. Finally I called Tony and said 'Look, Benny loves you, hates me, is always happier with you - what do you think?" Tony jumped at the chance to have Benny and promtly went and bought the most super-delux-pimped-out bunny condo I’ve ever seen. I really don’t feel bad about it, because both of them were much happier together.
Finally, I have a former friend who had a young daughter. She had a very bad habit of adopting dogs that were ‘troubled’ despite having no experience or training, and them dumping them after a couple of months when they tried to bite her daughter. Now, I have no objection to removing an animal that has gone after your child, but if you keep getting hard-case dogs, and do nothing to educate yourself about how to keep them then yes, you are a bad person. FWIW, she did eventually get a more appropirate dog (i.e. small, puppy, child friendly) let it out and it was hit by a car. She was actually offended when I told her maybe dogs just weren’t the right choice for her. I think she may actually be a bad person - delusional at the very least.
So - to the OP - I really think it depends on the situaiton and isn’t as cut and dried as that other person suggested.
This makes no sense. What do you mean, “the opposite can happen”? People can mean to adopt a pet without actually doing so? How does that “result in the same thing”?
Then he didn’t “deliberately and voluntarily go through the whole process of adopting a pet”, and in fact it wasn’t even his pet in the first place. So you still haven’t got an apt analogy here.
The point is that circumstances change. In the case of the baby, she is unprepared but that doesn’t mean she won’t EVER be ready; in the case of the pet a person might have been prepared but something happens that changes that. In both cases, there is no reason a person cannot have a baby or a pet again when circumstances change.
He unexpectedly wound up with a pet that was suddenly his responsibility. It was deliberate and voluntary in that he didn’t throw the dog away - he tried to care for it and could not. The timing sucked for him so he had to find it a home. I don’t understand why that would preclude him from EVER having a dog again.
I don’t know that that’s true. Some dogs may be really upset at never seeing their old owners again, but I think that they’re pretty resilient. I think a lot of people tend to project human urges onto dogs. It’s not like giving up a kid. I think at first the dog might be kind of upset or freaked but generally they’re pretty happy as long as someone is feeding them/treating them well.
Hogwash. You don’t know my cats.
And some dogs are sooo attached to their owner that they may eat their face off.
The problem with this thinking is that it takes place without considering the context of the pet overpopulation problem. Maybe in some world of ideal Platonian solids your logic would be okay.
But in the real world there are already so many more cats needing homes than available homes that we’ve set up concrete facilities in nearly every city that gas them en masse and throw their bodies into incinerators merely to reduce the population. Where have we seen that final solution before?
Every cat that you find a good home for “bumps” a cat in a shelter somewhere who is on death row, if we follow the chain far enough. I am not saying that every human being should adopt a cat – but that when you do choose to adopt, you are pulling one life out of this gruesome chain of events. It seems unjust to arbitrarily turn that life (or by extension, another life it displaces) back over to the mass graves because of inconvenience or impediment.
To continue my thinly-disguised but surprisingly comparable metaphor, Oskar Schindler didn’t want inconvenience or impediment in his own life – by contemporary accounts, he was a selfish man concerned mostly for his own comfort – but even he came to realize a certain responsibility, whether it was in return for what those he had taken in had done for him, or because he saw there was no one else to step up to the plate.
Cats are not people, and saving them does not expose us to any danger remotely comparable to what Schindler faced. But they are meeting this fate all the same. Each of us has the power to step up to the plate and add at least one or two names to our personal list.
I have 2 cats. One is a friendly, people-loving cat who I know would happily transfer affections to whoever loved him, fed him and threw his toy over and over and over. He adores visitors and will climb into any available lap.
My other cat is a shy, timid, people-hater. She doesn’t like anybody…except me, who she adores. She follows me around, if I go into the bathroom, she waits outside the door. She sits in my lap, purrs, drools and kneads her paw for hours. She tolerates my husband’s presence (she has lived with him for 3 years) but will not voluntarily get into his lap or allow petting. (by tolerate, she will sit on the same couch as he does, as long as she is out of arm’s reach, if he tries to pet her, she will withdraw).
My shy cat hates all change, fears strangers and has a nervous disposition. Unlike your blithe generalization, I don’t think she would do well at all with a change in household.
I don’t believe in ideals, Platonic solids, or shadows on the walls of the cave. I also have a very small heart, so I care much more about my two cats than I do any other cats. If, for Mrs. Which and Mrs. Who to live, two other cats must day–or even twenty, frankly–well, I hope the coyotes enjoy a score of feline corpses.
And I care more about any human than any cat.
So, for example, you would actually have more care in your heart for say, John Wayne Gacy. than you do your cats? You would have sacrificed their lives to save his? You would have real feelings for him?
I’ve heard people say that before, and I find it a bit odd. I don’t see how simply being a biological human, no matter how horrible and despicable, makes someone so worthy of care. Hypothetically, if your family dog had just rescued your child from a Savage Murdering Rapist, and then (in this fantasy world) you were forced to choose between him and Pol Pot, you would shoot the dog? How about this? Would you shoot the dog in order to save the savage Murdering Rapist?