NurseCarmen, you’re just not getting it. Her posts are comedy gold. No, fuck that. They’re platinum.
Is there anyone here who has both children and pets who can say that they regard their pets as children?
My suspicion is that pet owners who are on the “my pets are my babies” trip feel that way because they experience a significant feeling of love, responsibility and attachment to their pets, but have no way of comparing that. Because these are the strongest feelings they have felt in a caregiver role, they figure it must be like having a child. This doesn’t make pets babies or children, however, and it does sound, well, loopy, to others when they hear it.
People can only feel the range of feelings that they are able to, and judge the relative strength and meaning within their own scale, but they should be able to cognitively appreciate the difference in the bonds and affection that would arise if they had a child instead of, or in addition to a pet.
I’ve mentioned this one before, but when my oldest son was three years old, he was diagnosed with diabetes. A woman with whom I worked was expressing sympathy by saying “I know exactly how you feel. My cat has diabetes.”
I took her comment in the spirit it was intended, but that’s just crazy, folks. I wonder if people who feel that they have “furbabies” ever end up having “flesh babies,” and end up feeling kind of silly for ever having made such statements.
As to the OP: yes - dog owner wrong; yes - sad that cat is dead; yes - crazy to be awarded $45K.
It’s certainly off to a rip-roaring start.
You’ve never had a cat, have you?
And I, for one, declare that my cat is priceless.
C’mon, we’re not all like that. I am a Central Casting “spinster lady with a cat,” don’t have children, don’t want children, don’t particularly like children. But as much as I love my cat (and as sad as I was when her sister died a few months ago), she is my cat. She is not “family,” she is not my “fur baby” (!), and when a friend’s daughter died a couple of years ago from a heart condition, I’d have cut out my tongue rather than saying, “Yes, one of my cats has a heart condition, too.”
(Opening tonight at CBGBs: Flesh Babies! Next week: East Lynne!)
We started this with some pretty callous comments from AirmanDoors like: “It’s a menace with fur” and “A cat is something that requires your help to survive because it’s too stupid to figure out that hairballs make it choke.” THAT is the reason this thread is going bad . . . it STARTED OUT bad, it was written poorly and heartlessly. People got upset with those comments (like myself) and called him on it. His personal feeling is that he doesn’t like animals, namely cats. Fine, be a prick.
I love my pets dearly, I have never said they WERE HUMAN but that they filled the void of not being able to have children (but with less responsibility). The rewards I get from having a pet will never match what having a child would do, but that’s how life has played out for me. How DARE you tell me and anyone else that our feelings are not healthy. If I was fucking my cat or dogs, THAT would be unhealthy. Providing them with a safe, warm, loving environment, and keeping them healthy is NOT crazy. I love my pets enough to kill to protect them if needed.
The guy got fined so much for his irresponsibility and his uncaring response. This is an old lady who probably has no one else and that was her best friend. She followed the law and she’s the one who’s crazy??
You’re some pretty tolerant fuckers, aren’t you?
OK, help me out here, people. When did this become a competition?
When you started making e-threats.
45K is not really a great deal of money by any stretch of the imagination, in the context of a court-mandated award, anyway. Regardless of the opinions of some, both for and against, (I am a childless animal lover and pet keeper; my pets are still my pets and not my children, and for that I am truly grateful as I will not have to worry as to whether they get into the right kindergarten), there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind as to the extreme emotional distress one might incur while watching a beloved pet be mauled to death.
Sheesh, folks. Look past the end of your own noses for a change.
Nobody thought that you said that cats contain human DNA. What we are saying is that anyone equating the loving bond that someone has with thier pet to the loving bond shared between a parent and a child seems to be very confused, if not worse.
The cat/human competition began when Airman claimed that since the US military gives a laughably small death benefit, cats are worth more than people.
Since when is asking for an apology a threat?
The guy insulted my girlfriend. He called her a crazy loner. What would you have me do?
Well, I take back the loner part if she’s your girlfriend. But the crazy part? If she treats her cats like children, then no, I’ll not be taking that part back.
There’s nothing wrong with loving a pet. There wouldn’t be much point in going to the hassle of keeping a pet if we couldn’t love them. I don’t have much respect for people who are neglectful of their pets and don’t treat them with the care and love they deserve.
However, it’s possible to go to the other end of the crazy spectrum, and that’s the people who start treating their pets like children. And calling them furbabies. Once you call children “fleshbabies” you’ve pretty much gone over the edge…
I think the confusion is primarily on the part of the people who vociferously claim that cats are not humans. It is these people who seem to be having difficulty with reality. They seem to think that cat lovers are a real threat to humanity somehow.
If you are talking about killing people to protect your pets, then that sounds very healthy to me. :dubious:
You’re in the wrong forum for tolerance.
[QUOTE=tdn]
Since when is asking for an apology a threat?
The guy insulted my girlfriend. He called her a crazy loner. What would you have me do?
[QUOTE=tdn]
Say that you disagree and say that you’d like an apology.
[QUOTE=tdn]
Before I tell you to eat shit and fuck off, are you calling my girlfriend a crazy loner? I’ll give you one chance to take that back.
[QUOTE=tdn]
This seems like you’re massaging your huge e-peen. Insults never hurt anyone physically and opinions are like assholes… everybody has one.
My… I totally screwed that up. You may insult me at will…
If someone (person or animal) is trying to kill my pets, they are fair game to me. Bottom line.
Obviously.
Who has done this?
Past a certain point (somewhere slightly after “fur babies” but before someone starts calling children “flesh babies”), it’s not healthy. If you take your pet-love past a reasonable point and brag about it in public, I will dare to say so, and I hope someday you’ll listen.
Willingness to kill people to protect your pet = pathological. Not healthy. If you really feel that way, you need help. Badly.
If her cat was so precious, what the hell was it doing outside?
You’re the one who speaks of murder in order to protect your pets.