Friday, January 4, 2008

Life is not meaningless



I lost two of my cats earlier today. One of them, Winter, I buried her sister last year. The other was Caly's son, Artemis. I wish I could say that I felt the same as when I found Caly's lifeless body. Yes, I was sad. I cried. I raised these two cats since they were kittens. They were my children.

But I was also angry. I kept on thinking about how they died. They were attacked by another animal. A dog, from the size of the wounds. I was so angry about how people blissfully neglect their animals to let them run loose, whenever, how ever, no restraints, no leash, nothing. And to make matters worse, they don't even care to train their animal.

Yes, I can understand the need for a guard dog, but you know what? Guard dogs are trained to do what they do. I obey commands, they do what their handler tells them to do. They don't just run off whenever they want to run off and cause havoc, because they can. People need to be held responsible for the actions of their pets. They are a lot like children, that need to be trained and nurtured and disciplined, so that they act responsibly at all times. If they can't or won't be held responsible enough to train their dogs to act properly, then they should own dogs.

I had a dog, Lobo, who, yes I admit, was a bit rambunctious, but he was well behaved. The only time he ever growled at anyone was when my son was outside and someone he didn't know was in the same area that my son was. He was very protective of my son, but he never bit anyone, or hurt anyone. Why? Because I would train my dog to behave. He sat when he was told to sit. He wouldn't move when he was told to stay. He was well behaved because we took the time to train him.

Sure, he was hand-full. When I would take out for walks, he had a tendency to run, but he was a puppy. It took a lot to make him understand that there were things that he could and couldn't do.

But he learned.

Not a day goes by, that I hear about some kid, a jogger, or some other poor bastard that gets attacked by a dog just because they got too close to them. Or that I hear about some Michael Vick wannabe gets chewed to death by the very animal that they are training to fight. Or gets sued because their dog hurts someone. What the f*ck do you expect? You have a poorly socialized creature that thinks that this is acceptable behavior! You create a monster, and expect to be blameless?! You allow this animal to act the way he does and not expect some kind of repercussion?! What are you a f*ckin' idiot?! This can be easily equated with leaving a loaded gun in a child reach and then expecting not to be blamed when the poor bastard shoots someone. What the hell do expect is going to happen?!

It angers me to know that there are people who so thoughtless to the fact that life, regardless of who's it is, that would they allow something like this to happen. Life is not meaningless. Life is precious. We need to appreciate the fact that it doesn't matter if that life is four legged and barely a foot off of the ground, of two legged and as tall as 7 ft, life is precious.