When my partner and I met I had a gerbil, he had no pets. We were young and just out of college so it wasn’t surprising he didn’t have a pet. Most people I knew didn’t have pets yet. I had grown up with quite a few pets running around the six acres of land I grew up on, and for me pets were just a part of my future. I would always have one. Thankfully the conversation did come up before we were married.
He does not like pets. His argument is not one of just “I don’t want to deal with pets” or “they are annoying”. He loves animals. He loves the joy and energy they can bring to people. His problem is with the way people treat pets. Animals were created to be wild, able to run free, Live in an environment of both safety and danger that they can not get in a human house. Humans have taken a beautiful animal and changed it to where it frequently has ailments that don’t happen in the wild. The first example that comes to mind is the English Bulldog. These dogs must have cesarean section in order to “deliver” their puppies. Last I checked the outside world does not have veterinarians available to make sure dogs are born.
People have started to see the problem with pets at theme parks. Orcas and dolphins are not meant to be kept in cages. Yet it is ok for us to do it to smaller animals? It is ok for us to in-breed dogs so they look, or behave the way we want them to?
We do have a dog, we got her from a shelter, and she is an amazing addition to our family. She is not my fur-baby. She is not one of my kids (though she behaves better than them at times). She is our dog. We try to take that into consideration when making all plans for her. She has instincts to run. She can only bark to talk to anybody… and she does it loudly. She is a dog. We need to treat her like one. She is already broken and unable to fend for herself in the wild, but we can do our part to make sure she is happy. We let her run as much as possible and find other dogs for her to wrestle with.
So for all those people out there that make the comment “I thought you don’t like dogs” when my husband does everything in his power to make sure the dog we have is happy, please don’t. He loves animals… just too much to want to force them into a box called our house.
The Adventures of a Wild Jess 