Does buying the dog a new ball or getting the cats a special food treat count as treating them like humans?
What about when I sing happy birthday to my cats to annoy them? 
I think when most people do these things, tongues are firmly implanted in cheeks.
You sure the flippancy isn’t because Ogre made the exact same point, though much more succinct, way back in post #15?
drmark2000, the words you have in the quote box are not the same words posted by 1920s Style “Death Ray”. Alterations of another user’s words within an attributed quote box, even minor ones, are not allowed. Please be careful to avoid doing this in the future.
Saw the post, certainly succinct but quite inadequate, more than likely from Ogre‘s fear of saying too much. I harbor no such fear.
Once again, I have nailed down the issues at hand with complete honesty and integrity. This required more effort and risk than Ogre was willing to put out.
Nor anyone else, as yet. Just a tremendous amount of tweeting and chirping from the birdies in their little nests.
It doesn’t matter. Cut from the same filthy cloth, they are.
drmark2000 did no such thing. You were comparing the wrong one of two similar posts.
Cut him some slack. Here he is, brain the size of a planet, forced to pay for the dubious honor of teaching us poor plebes hwo to think.
Aptly pointed out, Biffy.
You see, Giraffe is contriving a rationale to ban me, even at the expense of any actual rationale.
Thank you for your input.
So true. So very and sadly true.
No goat-rider, I happen to agree with the general sentiment of your post, though I don’t agree with how you present it. I was just plagarising someone elses post to have a laugh at your typo.
You’re right. I completely missed that. My apologies, drmark2000.
(I did think it was a very odd thing for someone to do. Not odd enough to make me question it, though – apparently I’ve gotten used to weird behavior around here. :))
Ah, thanks–I don’t do sarcasm well that early in the morning. 
And I do agree with you re tieing out outside etc–there was a dog in our neighborhood that everyone was terrified of–he was on a tie-line always. I doubt he was ever even petted! :eek: That is just wrong and (now) a reportable offense, and rightly so. Dogs (and cats) depend on us for just about everything-that is not a trust to be treated lightly.
Perhaps you need to spend less time in moderators’ meetings and more time just reading and posting.
Apologies accepted.
How long did it take you?
Please do not resort to allusions of sexual perversion as a part of attempting to make your point. Unwarranted and unconvincing.
Great! Super! Why didn’t you say so in the first place? With what “general sentiment” do you agree?
And with what, specifically, about my presentation do you not agree? Pick my whole post apart as I did with the OP. Expend some real energy. It won’t hurt you.
Plagiarism is absolutely necessary to any form of serious literary endeavor. If you can plagiarize in such a manner as to leave the reader thinking, “Duh, I never done thunk that afore,” then you have succeeded.
You didn’t succeed, here.
I wasn’t trying to make a point. Though I think it was extremely mild after you called me “gutless” and “afraid” of the information contained within your post (I’m not sure what information “I’m NOT and Obstetrician” contains other than the obvious, nor why I would be afraid of it.)
I didn’t say anything because I had already said everything I wanted to in this thread and didn’t feel like entering the fray again. I’m responding to you here because you are adressing me directly. I’m hoping that my response will be the end of it. The general sentiment I agree with is that I disagree with the OP, as you seem to.
I have absolutely no interest in debating anything with you. So I will not be picking apart your post. As I said earlier, the purpose of my post was to make light of your typo. That, and nothing more.
Succeed at what? I don’t consider this to be a form of serious literary endeavour, and I certainly had no high aims with my post. It was not meant to be better or more thought proking than the original post, it was not meant to leave you or anyone else thinking “Duh, I never done thunk that afore,” and it certainly wasn’t meant to be any kind of criticism, positive or otherwise, of your first post.
Just to finish up, you may notice that my post was in reply to this one of yours:
and had no relation to your first post.
Has it occured to you that you may be confusing me with Quint who’s post, that I plagiarised, was in response to your first post?
Good DAY to you sir.
The reason my response to your post was flippant and dismissive had nothing to do with your having “nailed down the issues at hand with complete honesty and integrity.” It was because you post was clearly the work of a teen mind gripped in the clutches of a gothic phase, and was an embarrassingly public display of existential angst the type of which most people encounter long before becoming an MD. as an obstetrician you should really know better.
That particular post of mine was not my finest moment on these boards. Shitty day and all that. :o
Anyway, Maureen, just to nitpick, even though I had that minor momentary lapse of reason, I don’t think I suggested that I hadn’t read them. I’ll admit that I skimmed them, but I didn’t completely omit to read them. The point I was trying to make, albeit somewhat shrilly, was that we were sitting on 6 pages on a subject that in my view had previously been beaten to death. With seemingly no winners nor converts.
I just sometimes wish we could all learn to live and let live, that’s all. I know, my post wasn’t particularly helpful, but there you have it. Bottled frustration.
I think a lot of parents have the same experience I did: I had three cats, and they were my babies. I loved on them and cuddled them and pet them and awww, fuzzy kitties, BAYbies! Furry love!
Then I had a baby, and my furry sweet babies suddenly and magically turned into pets. They still got loved and petted and fussed over and cuddled, but I sure as shit didn’t think of them as “my babies” any more.
It may be “not fair” that a lot of people with kids don’t think you can love your pets as much as people love their kids, but it’s also not fair that men can write their name in the snow when they urinate, or that sometimes parents are given the ghastly gift of outliving their children.
I don’t give a shit how much anyone thinks they love their pets OR their kids. I think people with pets should love them enough not to fuck with their minds, bodies, or emotions. I think people with kids should love their kids enough not to fuck with their minds, bodies, or emotions. I think that the ability to do this with a child involves a far more complex kind of love, but I don’t think the complexity necessarily has anything to do with the DEGREE.
You know, if you totally ignore the second-to-last paragraph of that post, it’s a lot less shitty and does a better job of conveying what I mean.
think twice, post once. think twice, post once. think twice, post once.