#dadblr

Everyone has an opinion about everything these days. And that’s nothing new or negative. But it’s the current trend to be unyielding and ruthless with those opinions. And I had a patient the other day who really put things into perspective. “You know,” he said, “it’s legal for humans to have abortions and cats to get spayed. But flip that around and we’d start a war.” Think about that for a moment. Then think about it again. “But humans have more rights than cats,” you say. Tell that to PETA. “But we have to control the cat population,” you say. Why? What’s wrong with more cats? Why should they be punished because they’re skilled survivors? If we suddenly stopped spaying and neutering all cats and we had a massive overpopulation… then what? Would the Earth collapse into utter ruin? More likely, we’d have a global eradication of all rodents, and then the cats would start slowly starving and dying off. Thus, nature would eventually self-correct. Would it be pleasant for humanity? Absolutely not. But that’s exactly the point right there. It would be inconvenient not for cats but for US.

Why are some people so against getting cats declawed? Because it’s “cruel,” right? But what about spaying them? Disregarding the pain and trauma of surgery, who are we to take away an animal’s most basic reason for living? If someone had told your teenaged self, “You can either keep your fingertips or your reproductive organs,” which one would you have chosen? Mmhmm. That’s what I thought. “But why did you need to get Fancy declawed at all?” you ask. Why couldn’t we have just learned to carefully clip her claws, get her those little claw covers, or just stop being so superficial and get used to the idea of shredded furniture? Well, convenience, that’s why. Same reason we got her spayed. We didn’t want a little preggo cat that would lead to us taking time to find homes for the kittens (and thus leading to the global cat overpopulation and subsequent inevitable collapse of mankind), and we didn’t want destroyed furniture. COULD we have kept all of her body parts intact? Of course. But we as humans have a need to control things. And this way, at least little Fancy gets to live out her days amongst the people who love her. Oh, and before you ask why she couldn’t have been an outside cat, that would not only have been animal cruelty (Missouri winters suck royally), it would have been daughter cruelty. Because, as I said, my daughter could not survive without cuddling with that little feline on every available occasion.

I mentioned briefly that we, as humans, like to control things. That comes in the form of domesticating wild animals that are naturally solitary creatures. It comes in the form of keeping our homes tidy and safe from claws. And it comes in the form of passing judgement on one another. We all have our own particular worldview. And we believe in that worldview with all of our heart. And no two of us see things exactly the same. That’s because most of these views aren’t absolute truths. Being a Christian, I DO believe in certain universal truths. But the topic of declawing isn’t one of them (nor is mandatory vaccination… oops). You’ve got an opinion on it. So do I. And neither opinion reflects the goodness of our hearts or the purity of our souls. It’s that way with so many things, and I’m thankful for the recent reminder.

On another note, our precious Fancy is all healed up and just as ornery as ever (but she can no longer sucker punch our geriatric dog in the face with her claws). Her health, happiness, and safety are now fully our responsibility, but then again, they have always has been. Same goes with my kiddos. Which is why we let our oldest animal lover dress up as Cruella de Vil for Halloween and our youngest animal lover dress up as a coat, er… Dalmatian. We didn’t spoil the moment by explaining the animal cruelty that they were inadvertently promoting. Nope. We let them rock those costumes and trick-r-treat until they nearly passed out. And only a part of that decision was swayed by the Dad Tax on their candy haul…