I freezing your bra!
And your point would be? The sole function of those animals while at those nursing facilities is to act as pets. To be loved and return affection. Which in turn helps doctors learn more effective ways to treat those patients which…wait for it… benefits society as a whole.
Also incorrect.
People with pets (cats specifically) have lower blood pressure, which helps their owners be more productive and lose less work time and extends their lives, which also allows them to contribute more.
I’m sorry! I was only joking. Of course we do. And catfights always, ALWAYS lead to kissing.
It’s true. Why, just last night Maureen & I were fighting about biochemical maternal bonding, and I pulled her hair, then she pushed me, then one thing led to another… [What Exit?'s head explodes]
There, that is better; all that was wrong with the world is right again. We semi-Neanderthalic over aged teens at heart can go back to our happy little illusions again. 
Jim where is the “oblivious to reality and happy about it” smily?
I think you’re the one who’s doing the belittling here. You’re the one who seems to think she’s more important than the rest of us because she’s repopulating the earth to take care of all the stupid people who don’t have children. Gee, before you came into this thread, I thought it had turned into a rather nice discussion. Now I’m pissed. Perhaps it’s time for me to walk away as well.
I have no idea what started it. I’ve had him since he was about a year old, when he was abandoned at a vets after being dropped off to be neutered.
It seemed odd to me, too. I’ve never had a dog with psychological problems before, though. Nothing terrible has ever happened to him while we owned him, and if he was abused by his previous owner, you’d think the problems would already be apparent when we got him. Can dogs suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder? Seems wierd to me. Maybe it was just a shift in his brain chemistry as he got older. Regardless, it started with him occasionally refusing to go for a walk. I’d put his leash on, and he’d lock his forelegs so you had to drag him. He went from refusing once or twice a month, to once or twice a week, to never, ever going for a walk. Other stuff, too. Like a lot of dogs, he hated thunderstorms. When one hit, he’d come running to press up against my legs and shiver uncontrollably. But he started reacting to normal, everyday noises like it was a huge storm. Car horns, garbage trucks, shit like that. When he started to spend all day hiding in the shower stall (it’s hard to hear stuff anywhere else in the house from the shower, so I think that’s why he liked it there), something clearly needed to be done. The poor animal was miserable.
He’s a border collie/pyrenese mix. They’re both herd dogs, and not at all known for skittishness, although they do experience a high degree of seperation anxiety. My dog was particularly bad, because of his abandonment as a puppy, but these symptoms were something else altogether.
No, not at all.
Two to three years now, IIRC.
Hmm. It’s definetly the lion’s share of his expenses. He’s not on any other medication, aside from flea and tick stuff we put in his fur every two months or so. We don’t buy pet food for him at all. Instead, we cook up a batch of rice and cheap beef every week and feed him that. I’m sure I’ll get a whole new batch of eye-rolls for that, but it’s cheaper, healthier, and only takes fifteen minutes a week to prepare. Aside from chew toys and the occasional trip to the groomers, that’s about all his expenses. I’d say that the meds are a good 90% of what we spend on him.
Okay, if this were your dog, what would you do? The animal spends all day as a quivering mass of terror. You have to start each day by kicking him out of the shower. He won’t go outside. When he’s not cowering in the bathroom, he’s leaning against you and vibrating like a maritial aid. How would you treat him? Just have him killed and get a new one?
You do realize that, if I didn’t have a dog, I still wouldn’t be paying your friend’s medical bills, right?
I’m sure it’s just one of a great many things you fail to understand.
The only regular med I take it Tagamet for my acid reflux.
Miller-any pics?
No. She really doesn’t. Really. That subtle point is the one that completely eludes her.
I don’t have a cite for this (so don’t ask) and I am not a vet - I’m just a bored secretary with anecdotal evidence.
Yes. My dog has it. Our closest family friend who is a vet tech also agrees. She’s known the dog longer that we have, too.
Email me if you would like to hear what we’ve done with him/for him in the past few months - I don’t want to bore anyone else or hijack this.
No kidding - that post about
was more than just a bit on the snotty side. Whoever said childless people aren’t treated like freaks should reread that.
This shit is angrying up my blood - time to check out something else for a while until I calm down.
Dogs lower your blood pressure too* and I have irrefutable anecdotal evidence to prove it.
Of course when they extend our lives they also increase the number of non-productive years we will have, during which all the children our peers had out of a spirit of nobility and self-sacrifice will have to support us while we mumble confusedly and try to give treats to the wrong end of the cat. :eek:
The pet is unlikely to be a worse speller, however.
I had a cocker spaniel once who would answer the phone. Confused hell out of salespeople.
*making up for the blood pressure increase when you discover the beloved pet has eaten all the brownies and then experiienced chocolate diarrhea on your new rug.
Though not an animal lover, I am an extreme animal liker. With the possible exception of our present dog (the wife, without asking first, went and bought an infernal “Snoodle”- my life as I previously enjoyed it, is now over), I like and respect all animals. Where do I draw my own line with animals v. people? Right about here: If I had to either kill my cat, Tibby, or flip the switch on ol’ “Sparky” for a death row inmate whom I was convinced was guilty of a heinous capital offence… I would let the sparks fly, pour Tibby a bowl of Little Friskies and not for a moment regret my decision.
Do I think that people who are animal lovers to the extreme (like my mother who will cry if even a cartoon cat gets harmed) are a bit quirky? Yes, but quirky really doesn’t bother me. I would be interested to see a study comparing loving animals and harmfulness to society. My guess (based solely my life experience) is that the results would reveal inverse proportionality between those two parameters. The more people care about animals, the more likely they are to care about the welfare of society at large.
Animal lovers as a class are people who I would be more likely to entrust with my own welfare. If I were in an emergency situation where I had to leave my children with a stranger for a period of time and the only information that I was given was that one particular stranger was an animal lover, I would choose that stranger to keep my kids. On the other hand, if I were in the market to retain a lawyer to defend me at all costs and rip my opposition a new one, I would choose the one with a history of torturing animals and taunting young children. 
Think of your average hardened criminal, your average vandal or even the average person likely to flip you the bird on the highway. My guess is that a statistically insignificant number of these people are likely to go home to their pampered jewel-collared kitty-babies and feed them Beluga caviar on sterling silver dinner plates. Animal lovers are empathetic, miscreants aren’t.
People can spend their money in any way that they see fit as long as it is legal. My guess is that, due to animal lovers being generally more empathetic than the general population, they most likely give a higher than average percentage of their money to charity (despite spending a good deal of money on their pets). Conversely, they could just as easily use the money that they spend on pets on things that actually do harm you (i.e. pollutants). So, I don’t begrudge them spending money on their pets. Where do I draw my own line with regard to spending money on pets? About here: I would spend about two weeks salary toward a heroic medical procedure in an attempt to save one of my pets (The Snoodle being the exception…$10, tops 
).
Love? Everyone is entitled to love in any way they so desire, so long as it is legal and does not harm others. What is sadder, a little old lady with no friends or family sitting in a room with nothing to care about except what she is going to eat for her next meal, or that same old lady who showers all of her affection on, and feels loved by a mangy, flea-ridden dog?
Animal lover/do-gooder: causality? No, but certainly correlative – empathy being the link that binds. Animal lovers = high degree of empathy; high degree of empathy = less likely to do harm; less likely to do harm = more likely to do good.
Does Gaudere’s Law apply to the proper use of articles as well?
I misspelled hamster up above, so I make no claims to be above the law.
Aw, he sounds adorable.
If, when seemingly oblivious to how offensive it may be, a pet lover tries to empathize or relate in general to your experiences with your children and theirs with their pets, they issued a disclaimer up front?
Say; “I realize this in no way is comparable/the same/close to what you go through, etc., but Fluffy is/has…” Would that then be okay? If it is recognized that there is a vast difference from your point of view?
And to Miller I’d like to say thank you for taking care of your baby as best you could within what you are able to do, and not just giving up because of the cost or trouble involved. Having lived in the country, I’ve seen many the equivalent of ‘putting an animal to sleep’ by them being dumped along side the road. At least trying to find a placement for that is more humane.
Starting with the serious and proceeding to the absurd:
Everything is not black and white, you know. We had a very nice favorite restaurant when our daughter was young. When she was just two years old, the owners and waiters all knew her. She loved the restaurant, and was very well-behaved there. The only time she was in a rotten mood, our waitress took her in the kitchen and showed her how they were making her food, and she did much better. Our son, much more likely to be snarky in restaurants, didn’t go to places like that with us. I think most parents (excepting those self-deluded idiots who think their children are always perfect) can tell the difference. For every “problem” kid we see in a restaurant, we see dozens that are just fine.
Which reminds me of another favorite quote: “Any time you think you have influence, try ordering around someone else’s dog.”
Well, if it was a BAT furbaby…
As I understand it, that episode with Trunk and the goat just happened once. For 20 minutes. In 1960. At the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Ian Fleming seems to have disagreed with you on that point.
I referred only to spelling, miscreant. 
For my money, whatever that’s worth, I already try to make that mental accomodation on their behalf, as I hamfistedly tried to explain earlier. I’m not sure it would make a difference. I’d respond much better if they empathized or related without the linkage between pet and child. I mean, if one really does know that there is a difference between children and pets, it seems more appropriate to empathize at the level of the child. “I can only imagine how ( [sad] [painful] [joyous] ) that must be for you!” would be much better than “The closest I can come is to liken your child to my dog.”
This thread has me remembering back to my early days in training as a psychologist. I would bristle at the idea, expressed by some parents in therapy, that I could not at all imagine what it was like to be a parent. “Why sure I can,” I would think, and would rattle off to myself all the ways I thought I could understand. Boy, was I wrong. Now I simply recognize that one cannot know exactly what anyone else’s experiences have been like, particularly without having experienced anything remotely similar. I find “I can only imagine …” to be a very handy and honest phrase in such circumstances.
Hentor, you expressed yourself perfectly well and I apologize if I came across as understanding anything different (actually, it was your post that led me to ask other parents that question). You are completely correct, in my humble estimation, that we can only guess at what anyone else goes through, even if we’ve seemingly been exactly in the same place. There’s just a gazillion too many variables involved.
For what it’s worth, I hope I constantly recognize that I don’t know jack shit about (generic) your life and can only try to visualize myself in another’s moccasins. If I’ve ever done to the contrary, especially in regards to a child, I’m so very sorry. I can’t imagine anyone (even the most delusional) not knowing that there is a difference between the two, no matter how small they think it is. And you’re also right that the “I can only imagine (and the caveat that I add is “and it’s still probably not close”)…” phrase to be a wonderful addition to any empathizing one might offer.