It has been said that the way you treat and take care of an animal is a direct indication of the way you treat and communicate with human beings. Unfortunately, there are many people who mistreat and have no idea about how to behave towards animals, let alone the human beings around them!
Here are some tips to consider BEFORE you bring a pet you are supposedly aiming to be responsible for, into your home:
- Adopt DON’T buy!
If you really love animals and want one to love unconditionally, his pedigree/how much he’s ‘worth’/where he comes from, shouldn’t matter. Don’t bring a pet into your home if all you want is fodder for social media ‘likes’, or to appear ‘cool’, or different. Better to adopt a dog or a cat who has no one to love him and care for him, rather than buy one from a breeder who, most probably, will be taken care of anyways.
In this regard, there are many options to look at in Malta, and many cute animals in need of help, love and attention. To name but a few organisations and NGOs who take care of such strays, there’s the AAA (Association for Abandoned Animals), Noah’s Arc, The Island Sanctuary, the MSPCA and many more, since unfortunately, there are many such abandoned animals in Malta.
2. Make sure you have the FUNDS to take care of your pet properly
BEFORE deciding to take another household member, it is imperative for you to take stock of your financial situation. Seems like common sense doesn’t it? And yet some people take in one dog, then another, then a third, and then a fourth, before they realize that ‘oh look, the dent in our budget is too big and we cannot afford this – let’s let some of the dogs go’. Don’t be selfish. Be an adult. Think about how you will finance your family before you increase it (and this goes for people who decide to have kids too actually).
3. Make sure you have the TIME to take care of your pet properly
If you are adopting a dog, cat or another pet to love and care for, money is surely not the most important thing you need to have.
Some time ago, a friend asked me why me and my partner do not have any animals in our home since we love them a lot. My reply was that since we are out of the house for 8 – 10 hours almost every day, not to mention the fact that we love to travel and do so randomly 5 – 8 times a year, it would be very selfish of us to adopt a pet, only to pour it into someone else’s lap whenever we decided to go abroad. Not to mention the fact that he would end up spending more than three-quarters of his life alone! And all this for what? So that we could cuddle him a couple of hours every day? So that we could have someone waiting for us at home when we got back?
Some people actually do use pets in this manner. It may be because they are lonely, or because they are sad, because they live alone, or because they feel like they have no friends. They sign up for the responsibility of pets, when in the long run all they want is something to fill in the emptiness of their lives, even though this would mean that the dog or cat got to live most of his life alone in an empty house. THIS is selfishness.
And then what happens when they find a partner and are no longer alone? What happens when their family remembers them, they find new friends, or they get a new hobby? Does their love for their pet continue unchanged, or do they just realize that he is no longer needed and try to find a way to chuck him out of their life as if he were a broken toy? That is NOT what love is. And definitely NOT the behavior of responsible adults. How can you abandon someone whom you’ve chosen to love and care for? Unless of course, he was always just a prop you were using for other purposes in the first place. And that is how ‘stray’ dogs and cats are made… 😦
4. Make sure you have the LOCATION and SPACE to take care of a pet
Can you believe it, some people bring animals into their home as ‘companions’ only to realize that they don’t want them after all… because they ‘ruin the furniture’?! Seriously? First of all, how come you didn’t think of this before? And secondly, if your furniture is more important than a living breathing creature who loves you and wants to be with you, well then, you are not worthy of having one! Again… SELFISHNESS
And what about those who abandon their pets when they decide to relocate to a new and more expensive house? Again, ‘because we don’t want our new furniture to be ruined’? Wow, that’s love for you! Ugh!
If one decides to be responsible for a pet, that should be for life. You can’t chuck a cat/dog out of your house simply because you realize his presence has become ‘inconvenient’. Would you do that if you had a child and suddenly realized that playing mummy or daddy was not what you thought it would be?
So, yes, I feel very strongly about this subject, because I genuinely love animals and always have. Ever since I was little, no animal of mine has ever lived in a cage, and I hate leashes with a passion. Currently, I realize that it wouldn’t be fair to bring an animal to live with me and my partner because our lifestyle simply means that we cannot give any pet the necessary time and attention he would deserve, so instead of selfishly getting one anyways, we just don’t.
Some people would say that at least if you adopt a dog, he’d be living cozily in your home instead of with a multitude of other strays at a sanctuary – but then again, better for said dog to be adopted from the sanctuary by a loving family who can actually spend quality time with him and take him out rather than him spending his days alone in an empty house.
After all, this is what love is all about. Thinking of the other, instead of only about yourself. Which is why, coming back to the argument I mentioned at the beginning of the article, I truly believe that the way you treat your pets, shows the way you also treat people. If all you think about is yourself, then there is no actual relationship to speak of, be it a dog or a human being. Pets, unfortunately, don’t have the mental faculties or physical capacity to open the front door and walk out of your life if they are fed up with your selfish behavior. Humans do.
Darkly Dreaming Moonsong 