Please Don't Eat Our Best Friends

[AlienSlof]

4 hours ago, UsernameWithA9 said:

Your dog thinks you're a god. Your cat thinks the dog's an asshole.

 

'Dogs have owners, cats have staff' - on one of my fridge magnets!

[Karna5]

I appreciate this thread very much. I did not see the troll post by the person in question, but he did send me a private message stating how much he loves eating cats and dogs. I have, of course, blocked that person so I won't see his posts and messages anymore. I probably should have reported him as well, but without the context to know he was trolling everyone I didn't realize the magnitude of his crime against humanity, the crime of trying to make everyone he meets sad.

When I lived in a city, up to around six years ago, I was always concerned that the wildlife there was being displaced by concrete and human houses and roads and worse. I had a small plot of land, maybe 1/8 acre, and my girlfriend over the years built up an organic garden with countless edible fruit trees and plants (which I financed, of course, because until 2015 I had a job, and even for several years after my savings were considerable). Instead of using pesticides, we regularly purchased beneficial insects and spiders so that a proper ecosystem could deal with blights rather than poisons which kill everything.

I used to sit on the porch a couple of hours a night, even in the winter (which hit -6 F fairly often), and the families of raccoons, opossums, foxes, skunks, hedge hogs and other animals would come sit by me regularly. I still treasure the memories of baby raccoons pawing at my bare toes or trying to reach into my pockets. I also was a feral cat colony caretaker, of course, and many of the cats I have today (I have 12 currently) are rescues. I only wish I had been able to rescue more.

Eventually I found a house up north which I purchased for cash (USD $90,000 for 4000 square foot house, an additional guest house, a pond and 13.52 acres). We don't allow hunting in my area, though as it's very far from any city, hunting is fairly common though of course controlled by licenses and time of year. A couple of times my closest neighbor (who lives nearly a mile away) brought us 80 pounds of deer meat and a turkey as a gift, and we accepted it for the kindness it was intended. But generally my girlfriend and I stick to pasta and vegetarian food including even delicious vegan cheeseburgers. But mostly I like pasta and the like.

My girlfriend used to have a pet snake for the first many years she lived with me. But feeding Wiggles was always painful because often we grew a bond with the feeder mice in the time it took us to bring the mouse home for Wiggles. So we ended up buying mouse cages and keeping many pet mice as well.

I love animals. They're people. They're all individuals with their own personalities, not just by species but each animal. I love them. Are there mean or emotional broken animals? Sure, just like humans. But any animal (especially if it's not big enough to eat you) who gets to know you or, more importantly, who feels safe and is in a loving environment, is loving in return and kind in return. 

I can tell stories of pain, but I don't want to do that here. That other troll guy already told too many stories of pain. Instead, I want to say thank you for the stories of love.

*bows*