I'm not an animal lover - never have been. In fact, I'm at times fearful of dogs, and sometimes cats (man, it takes courage to say this). This fear probably stems from my experience while growing up in Club St. I was almost bitten by a stray dog once. I said almost because the dog had my ankle within the reach of its jaw, just that for some reason, it didn't snap! Maybe it was trying to scare me? Then there were those darned stray cats on the roof, making lots of din in the middle of the night, keeping me (and my family) awake with their fighting and love-making. Cats are proud creatures - you give them a hard look and they seem to stare back at you with a look of defiance that sometimes unnerves me. And to top it all, they sometimes urinated all over our house, on the rags and sometimes on our school bags. Their urine stinks for days!
Lest I appear to be callous in my above statement, let me put on record that though I don't fancy animals, I don't abuse them either. It just that, well, I keep my distance from them (and they better keep their distance from me).
When I commented to a colleague once about my dislike for animals, he quipped, with a hint of sarcasm, "Luckily, the animals don't need YOUR love."
Why, he's absolutely right. The animals don't need my loving. They get plenty of love from pet lovers with heart of gold who were reported to be willing to spend between $4000 - $8000 on their pets' medical bills. There was a gal who forked out $20,000 to have a stem cell transplant performed on her cat.
My first reaction to that was: "Wow, that's a lot of money to save a pet." But you know what they say about man's best friend? To many people, they are the 4-legged kind. So, I'm not entirely surprised at the attachment some people have of their pets. I guess what they say about a dog's life being better then that of a man's is true.... I mean I'm sure people have died because of their inability to afford medical care (well, maybe not here in Singagpore, but it happened). So, it does seem kinda odd to me when you read report like this.
So, to answer the above question: Yes if I'm very rich (and single, or married but childless), or even borderline rich so long as I have some savings left for a raining day; but No if I'm poor and trying to make ends meet and constantly worrying about when the food is gonna arrive on my dining table.
Category: Musings
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Yes if I'm very rich (and single, or married but childless), or even borderline rich so long as I have some savings left for a raining day; but No if I'm poor and trying to make ends meet and constantly worrying about when the food is gonna arrive on my dining table.
i kinda agree, but i guess i will save a pet than a human thats not worth it...
humans are uglier than pets, i believe.
I will not save a cat for $20,000. Why? Because a cat has nine lives. Why prolong the agony of a sick cat when it has eight more lives to live? Haha.
I quite fond of animals but still $20,000 is too much. Not when there are so many poor and starving people in this world.
Love is a very powerful motivating force. Hellen of Troy can launch a thousand ships.
Elaine - I know what you mean. 有些人禽叟都不如. But let's not give up hope on the human race, yet.
Victor - Have you been fighting with the cat over the fish? No wonder so clever. :P
Chun See - My sentiments, too. There's no hope for the human race. (Elaine, pretend you didn't read this).
Zen - Agreed. Love is blind and it can make a man do the most irrational thing.
Humans love pets but pets sometimes showed much more love and loyalty than the two-legged ones. I think you have heard of this story: There was this man who came back home and every day his faithfully dog would anxiously wait for him at the railway station. One day he did not appear, probably died, and his dog still went to the station and wait for him. This went on for many years. No wonder my mother used to scold us when we were naughty...."it is better to rear a dog then you all"
Post a Comment