Shut Up And Listen 225

What About People?

What is it with the world where I have to defend myself to attacks that I abuse animals after my cat scratched me last week? Yeah, I was just patting her and she decided to take a swipe at me. Normally, I'm faster than the cat, but this time, she got me on my left-hand thumb, right at the edge of the nail, which meant her claw dug into that little crevice there and tore the flesh a little. A surprising amount of blood came out and it hurt like a motherfucker. Anyway, I related this story later that night in a very angry, venting kind of post on my livejournal and got a response back within twenty minutes insinuating that the cat probably thought I was going to hurt it because I'm violent towards it, which surprised me because I'm not violent towards the cat.

While my post was filled with some violent stuff, I was venting my anger at being cut open for no reason earlier that day. I wasn't exactly serious and am a big believer in catharsis through writing. I just found it funny that here I was the victim and the first response was to suggest that it was my fault. This got me thinking about animals. In my post, I had already touched on the subject slightly, discussing how when a pet does something good, it's praised for being smart, but when it does something bad, it just doesn't know any better. It's an interesting contradiction that you won't find people using on one another. It's not like I'd ever be at a party, get praised for something I wrote, attack someone, and then have people shrug and say, "Oh well, that's just his nature, he doesn't know any better."

It's the same when dogs attack people. The first reaction is to insinuate that the victim is somehow at fault. "He shouldn't have been walking down the street like that. He was just asking to be attacked." It's bullshit.

I'll see comedians on TV all the time telling jokes about pets. Like the one where the guy was going to get a dog, realised it wouldn't be fair to keep a dog in a cramped apartment in a busy city, and then wondered, "Why am I living in a place where I wouldn't keep a dog?"

I don't know when it happened exactly, but at some point in the late eighties, early nineties, animals rose above humans on the social hierarchy. It's almost blasphemy to point out these days that humans are more important than animals because then, for some reason, you hate animals and want to abuse them or something. I'd never advocate hurting animals for any reason (except self-defence, of course) and think they should be treated well. I just think that a lot of people take that too far.

A while back, I saw a thing on TV about some poll that showed that a higher percentage of people would take a day off work to stay home if their pet was sick than if their spouse was sick. Didn't quite know what to make of it, still don't.

I don't know, I can't quite seem to get what I mean out properly. Hopefully you'll understand what I'm trying to get at.