Pets
This is a “rant piece” written on November 18, 2007 for my senior year Writing & Publishing class.
Rant: Pets
Above all else, let me quickly explain the title, as it implies an irritation with pets; which is hardly the case.
There are very few things in this world I love more than animals. I find them incredibly fascinating and most are adorable; even the mean ones. Most of them don’t mean any harm; they’re just defending themselves as any of us would do if someone moved in on our turf. I could actually write a whole paper on how much I love animals, but there’s no place for that in a negative rant essay. Maybe in a positive, stream of consciousness essay. Someday.
Something I often think about is how sad it really is to adopt a pet. Imagine being only weeks old and being torn away from your mother. That is certainly comparable to being adopted, and while plenty of people adapt well to adoption, others don’t and those are the ones of which I usually think.
Perhaps animals are different and don’t remember their parents like humans do. I like to tell myself that.
I got my first pets in 1996 – two cats, brother and sister. I don’t know exactly, but they were probably just the right age to leave their mother: six or seven weeks. They were tiny and adorable. I have the “scene” on a home movie and I saw myself ask, “Why couldn’t their mommy come with them?” Very cute and innocent. Even then I was thinking.
I didn’t give much thought to that notion until recently, when my boyfriend got a new six week old kitten. In the first few days, he darted around with horribly sad eyes, would cry, and suck on anything he found. It broke my heart. I started to think about how perhaps he was longing for his mother, and I realized that we as people, in the selfish urge to have something cute to run around the house and make us laugh; are ripping these poor souls away from their mother and siblings. While we give them a warm, loving home and make them feel happy, and they probably forget about all of that soon enough; it’s still heartbreaking.
Why do we do that? Why can’t we keep them together? Why do we feel the need to go, “aww, look how cute…” and “Say please! Woof! Beg for this treat I’m dangling in front of your face like you’re some kind of…animal. Oh.” I don’t understand any of this.
But that’s just me.
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This was going to be the end of my “rant” piece, however one of my kitties passed away last night and it got me thinking even more. As previously mentioned, he was almost 12 years old and so I’ve had him for more than half of my life. My heart is broken. I know grieving a pet is hardly comparable to the loss of a parent, grandparent, sibling, child, or anyone else; but I’ve never lost anyone close to me until now and it deeply affected me.
What I find myself thinking about is, Was he happy? Did we give him a good life? I hope we did. He didn’t get to spend much time with his mother, but he did live his whole life alongside his sister…and a loving family of four humans. I hope he loved us back.
One thing I’ve learned over the course of my life is that when you’re young, your parents can cure almost anything that makes you sad. If you break a toy or lose a doll at school, they will make the pain go away. When you come home from school one day, you may hear, “
But I can’t come home from school and have my mother say, “Look Tracy, I found Moo. He was hiding on the chair the whole time…” He won’t come back, and I feel selfish for mourning the loss of a pet when people lose their loved ones every day, but then I realize he was a loved one.
Maybe this is too extended and stupid for a rant piece, but here’s my new topic. I am ranting about death. It’s not fair and it never will be.
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