Firstly I will preface this with the fact that I jumped into the fray at Poop on Peeps again. My own fault that I got slammed? Most definitely. I was wearing my big girl panties and I was ready for that. So now I am here, defending my opinion, as is my right.
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When I was in Kindergarten, we had pet sheep. Two of them in fact; Jacko and Patches. We got them as poddy lambs, lambs that their mothers abandoned. By the end of lambing time, most farmers have a dozen poddy lambs, living in their kitchen and backyard, needing bottles every two hours. So when Mum mentioned to a farmer friend of ours that she would love a poddy lamb for me, he was only too happy to oblige. We ended up with two lambs and being 4 years old, I helped with every part of their upbringing. I gave them bottles, I traipsed backwards and forwards to their pen with hotwater bottles when it was cold and I helped Mum check their water and feed them. Every single day.
By the time my sheep had grown up I was very attached to them. However, I knew and had known since we got them, that Jacko and Patches were being raised so that we could slaughter them.
The time came and the deed was done, quickly and humanely. The sheep were slaughtered, separately and popped into our freezer. I remember taking Jacko sandwiches to school for Kindergarten lunch and being thrilled at the prospect.
A little while later, Mum bought three pigs. They were missing ears (- missing three between them), due to a rather nasty horse in their paddock that had picked them up by the ears and torn them off. The littlest runt, Wilbur, he was quite sick. I remember Mum holding him and forcing an evil concoction of garlic, parsely and comfrey down his throat. He wiggled and squealed, but at the end, he snuggled into Mum and she scratched his ears and he wiggled in pleasure. He recovered nicely and yet again, like Patches and Jacko, a few months later, he was slaughtered and we ate him. Before he was slaughtered though, he was a sucker for ear scratches, he would come when my mother called (as would his siblings) and they would converse with us, happily.
His sister Charlotte, she was Mum’s favourite. She was HUGE and yet, when Mum scratched her ears, she would turn into a puddle of jelly. She was at the top of the driveway once, about 100m away and too close to the road for Mum’s liking. Mum called her and happily, Charlotte turned and barrelled down the hill, 200 kilos of pig heading for my heavily pregnant mother. She stopped a few metres before Mum and happily snorted up to get her food.
Sweetie; she was another pig we had recently. One day, Sweetie just showed up at my parents, lost. Mum put down food and after a week of touch-and-go friendship making, Sweetie was one of the family. She thought she was a chook and would run around with the chickens, with the rooster madly calling alarm signals because THERE IS A STRANGE ANIMAL HERE and when all the chooks bolted, Sweetie would as well, wondering where the hell the strange animal was. Of course the rooster was alarmed by her, but she never knew that. Sweetie, after a fruitful and happy life was also slaughtered for food. Mum still talks fondly about the pig who thought she was a chicken.
Oscar-The-Super-Chook was bottom of the pecking order when I was in grade 6. The Kindergarten had hatched eggs in an incubator and they were raising them as part of a Kindy project. Oscar was getting badly bullied, and taking pity on him, I asked the kindergarten teacher if I could take him home to our chook pen. She kindly allowed me too and Oscar lived in a box in my bedroom for a while, before being moved outside to take his part with the other chooks. He would ride on the handlebars of my bike as I rode about the property and he always wanted to come inside and be part of the family. I suspect he thought he was a dog. Oscar also took his place on the list of pets I have eaten, when aged a few months old, he started getting beaten up by our older rooster. He made a delicious soup that we delighted in calling Oscar soup.
It was the middle of winter and the dog was dragging something around the yard by it’s neck. After heading outside to check it out, we found a chook, with most of the life sucked out of it. I begged and pleaded with Mum to be allowed to try and save that chicken and being the softy she is, she let me. I sat with a chook and a hotwater bottle on my lap for 2 hours, steadily dripping water in her beak with a straw. By bedtime, she was opening her eyes and starting to look around. I popped her into a box next to my bed and by 4am, she was clucking and asking to be let out. Back she went to the chookpen, a chook that had been declared dead 12 hours before. Unfortunately, she was bitten by a snake a few months later and we found her, dead in the chook shed.
I’m not a sadist, nor am I cruel. I am merely realistic about my animals.
I had a cat, when Amy was a baby. Her mother had been put down a few months previously due to a broken leg and she was all alone. It made her whiny and her behavioural problems were difficult to deal with. She used to piss on the clean laundry and in the corners. One morning, I woke up and found her asleep on Amy’s head. I know that cats don’t steal the breath from babies, but they can and do suffocate or smother them. I made the hard decision and had her put down. We don’t have no kill shelters here, and the cats home are honest about the fact that adult cats with behavioural issues tend to end up getting put down. Her end, it was quick and painless and as much as I liked the cat, I felt relieved. No more cat piss, no more smothered babies.
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I commented on Poop on Peeps this morning in defence of Super Agent Josephine, who had her cat put down, humanely by a vet, due to lingering health issues. She is getting slammed for her decision, but honestly, if it was quick and painless, I have no problem with it.
I also got slammed for saying that in the event of a bad injury to my current cats, Lucy and Wolfgang, I would put them down. Yes, yes I would. Because a) I don’t have $3000 to spend on vets bills and b) at the end of the day, I have to do the best thing for the cat. Is it humane to put an animal, who has no idea what is happening, through surgery and lots of painful procedures for myself? I don’t think so. I think it’s selfish. At the end of the day, animals want to be painfree. They don’t understand things being for their own good.
When I commented at PoP, I probably didn’t explain myself very well. I’m brevid and I’m realistic. I come from a totally different upbringing to a lot of people and as such, I am rather realistic about death. I will not let an animal suffer, no matter what, pain should be fixed immediately and if euthanasia is the way to do it, then sign me up.
I also think that the animals we slaughtered for food would disagree that they were not pets and therefore they didn’t count. They were loved and fed and had their ears scritched. They knew who we were and they were happy to be around us and for a pig that has the intelligence of a 3yo child, that means a lot.
All my current animals are rescues. The mares, both cats and Seven, were all rescued from various situations. Would I have liked to give my cat that opportunity? Yes, but I didn’t. Because at the end of the day, I didn’t feel that it was fair to Bugs to have to go and sit in a tiny cage, possibly for months while another home showed up. She was loved at the end and she felt no fear, or pain.
And to me, that is what really counts.
