Get On Your Soapbox #21

It's over four months since Christmas and those cute, cuddly kittens and puppies won't be so little anymore.

When I hear about people who change their pets like they change their underwear, it really gets my goat!

Someone tells me they have a new pet bird.  A little while later I ask them how their bird is going and I get an answer like this:

"Oh we don't have the bird anymore.  It didn't do anything interesting.  The kids were bored with it.  I was bored with it.  So we gave it away/opened its cage and let it fly away..."

or

"Oh yeah....the bird.  We forgot to feed it/fill up its water container and it died.  Oops!"

When I ask them how the dog is, I get an answer like this:

"I think we'll have to give the dog away.  The kids are bored with it.  Nobody takes it for walks."

But wait...it gets worse...

I had a conversation with someone who said she was sick of her kids not taking care of their pets.  Since she didn't want to do it, she said she was contemplating just letting the animals starve to show the kids they need to take some responsibility.

Rightio, so the innocent animals have to starve/dehydrate/drown in their own poo just to teach your kids a lesson?

Then there was the time someone I know put her cat outside on a 40+C day in Perth with no water for it.  When I asked her if she was going to put some water out for the cat, she replied, "Oh it'll find water somewhere."

Rightio.  Your cat will just miraculously manage to find water in suburbia on a stinking hot day?  That person then got annoyed at me because I filled up a container of water and left it outside for the cat.

I was talking to a friend on the phone the other day and she said, "If I see one more post on Facebook from someone giving away kittens because they can't be stuffed getting their cat sterilised, I'm going to really cut sick at them!"

A pet is a commitment.  Cats and dogs can live until they're 20 (or more).  That's a long time.  Way longer than when the kids get bored or go back to school.