We feed our dogs “high end” food because we want them to be as healthy as possible and looking at them we can visualize the results of excellent nutrition.
It’s a damn shame there are unwanted children not getting excellent care. You’d think the pope guy would be supporting abortion as an option to help!
Really? People spend their money are all sorts of expensive nonsense - cars, boats, guns, designer clothes, expensive holidays, collecting old stamps - and you think spending en extra few quid on pet food is the problem?
You know, caring about the health and well-being of pets is pretty low down the list of unethical things in my universe.
I never said those things were ideal either. In fact, I’m not sure where that line should be drawn; I think it’s pretty commonly agreed that nobody is expected to live like a hermit until everyone is provided for, but nor should people be buying extravagant nonsense either when they could do a lot of good with it either. I struggle with that personally. And I think a lot of it with pets goes to how much you value pets, and whether or not that’s reasonable. I mean, I’ve heard crazy stories of people going into serious debt paying for veterinary care for a old cat. If that’s not misplaced priorities, I don’t know what is.
And someone will probably tell me some story about how their pets are their family or something, which is exactly the point the Pope is trying to make.
Of course it’s their privilege to do that if they so choose, but I don’t have to think it’s right or normal.
What if the person was Hitler?
Hey, it’s my life I’m putting at risk here. I wouldn’t think twice to do that for one of our dogs or for family/friends.
ISTM that the concept of my vs. your is probably more controlling in this situation than pet vs. child.
F’rinstance: if I saw a stranger’s child and dog simultaneously fall through the ice and I was sure that I could rescue one (and only one), I’d rescue the child.
But my dog vs. your child ?
I can’t say I’m sure what I’d do.
People aren’t automatically saying that their pet is inherently as important as somebody else’s child in order to maintain that they feel a very strong bond with their pet – maybe the closest thing that they feel to the bond a parent feels to a child.
Heck, you don’t have to go all the way to Hitler. I wouldn’t risk my life to save Putin if he fell through the ice, even without a dog to save beside him. But random stranger over a pet seems like a no-brainer, and choosing the pet over the stranger does seem selfish to me.
Fortunately we rarely find ourselves in these sorts of situations!
My children won’t even pick up their own clothes. Their own clean clothes which they yanked out of their dressers or closets in their picky search for today’s outfit. The “not this, not this, not this” clothes.
Even looking at poop would be way beyond the pale.