a special hell

[2eclipse]

l (coworker): oh yes, we have a cat. she is such a sweetie. her name is swannie. and you know we just moved back into our house. we moved out so that we could fix it up and we just moved back. we left her there while we were gone. there's a barn there and we keep a cat door there for her. she's a good hunter and keeps all the mice away. sometimes she scares the neighbors though. she had frostbite on her ears so she's just got little nubs of ears left. and we have a dog. he just loves her. he picks her up by the neck and shakes her. and you'd think she'd smack him, but she just takes it. they have kind of a weird relationship. only she has kittens every year and one time when she was pregnant she got up on the tractor and got away from him. we have coyotes and such in the area so the kitties don't normally last long.
me: you know it's really bad for her to have kittens every year. it takes a lot of nutrients out of the mama's body and can really wear her out.
l: well we like to keep a kitty or two.
me: yes, but you want to keep HER, don't you? having kittens every year will kill her. ask your vet if you don't believe me. it will do the same to us. i know a guy who's grandmother had 14 kids and she wound up in a wheelchair and eventually died because the nutrition had been leeched out of her body. the babies always come first.
l: well our vet, he's not really a cat person.
me: well maybe you ought to get a vet who is a cat person

i just feel sick hearing this kind of thing and i hear it ALL THE DAMN TIME!!!

is there a special hell for people who don't care for their pets? please God let people FEEL the abuse and/or neglect they inflict on their animals and learn from it before they can come into your glory.

Comments

[ashoe.livejournal.com]

To me, this person doesn't have a pet cat. They have a resident mouser that they occasionally do things for. Swannie is a part of their landscape, not their family.

I agree. Those people suck.

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

the worst part is how counterproductive it would be to tell this lady exactly what i think of how she treats her animals.
instead i find myself making calm suggestions instead of ripping her a new one like i'd like to - because if i did she'd just shut me out and not even think about getting her cat fixed.

and she thinks of herself as xian!!! arggh. people like this make me want to beat them with a bible. stewardship! it's in the scripture! stop applying your faith selectively!

[mamaursula.livejournal.com]

I agree with ashoe, her cats are not pets, they are working animals who have a place on the farm. I have had cats in the past and I would not allow the things that she has allowed happen to her cat, but my cats were house cats and had no expectations put on them beyond being spoiled.

As for your comment about stewardship. No where in the Bible does it say that we should have our cats fixed so they don't have a litter every year. I do think that allowing the poor thing to have frostbite is pretty negligent, but I don't really see how looking at things as a farmer would, that doesn't make one not a Christian, it just makes them accepting that there are things that they can't stop, like a female cat going into heat and coyotes doing what comes natural.

I am not saying I agree with what she did, I just think that being angry because she's a Christian is really not your place.

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

i believe you misunderstand me. i am a xian myself. it is not that she is a xian that pisses me off. it's that i think she's a crummy one.
and the way she talks about her cat is as a beloved pet. i didn't copy so much of that part into the post, because i wasn't shocked by it.

you are correct that scripture doesn't say anything specifically about fixing animals. but it does talk about caring for them well. and while it is perfectly natural for animals to have babies, endless repetitive litters will kill them according to my vet. i don't think it is responsible and i don't think it is loving her cat well (who she claims to love) or good stewardship - which IS scriptural.

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

i should add to this that i know i am not a perfect xian either. i'm not supposed to judge others. but it is hard to put my feelings aside when a helpless child or animal is suffering.

[mamaursula.livejournal.com]

I know, I just wanted to remind you that you are wasting your energy being angry. Put it in the hands of the one who can deal with it and ask Him to help those who are helpless. Pray globally, act locally. I have had to come to that place to keep myself sane.

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

i do. but sometimes venting is the only thing that helps. you have the advantage of distance. i see this woman every day. and in time this anger will fade and i certainly am not going to spend heaps of time on it. but the revelation that people i KNOW feel this way really pissed me off.

[rengetsu.livejournal.com]

WTF?? How can there be a flipping VET that is not a cat person? Shouldn't vets be all animal people? Maybe someone needs a new line of work >_<

yes. yes there is. they are used as scratching posts and fecal matter receptors.

i mean, i'm all for farmcats and all that, but the owners are still responsible for its wellbeing. grrrr...

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

a lot of vets DO specialize. and i can respect their right to do that. especially in the country where there's a lot of "livestock" vets. but DAMN!
i want worse for them than scratching posts and fecal matter receptors. i want them to FEEL the pain they inflicted on the animals that depended on them. actually that's pretty much what i believe hell is. when we come "face to face" with God, i believe we have to face the TRUE DAMAGE we did in life as well as the true goodness. because i think seeing clearly means we see ourselves in addition to seeing God. i don't think we can truly be in communion with God unless we can see ourselves as He sees us. the people who can live with what they've done from that perspective? well maybe that's what's called heaven. the people who can't? guess they are in hell until they come to terms with themselves.

[rengetsu.livejournal.com]

Typically there are cat-and-dog vets (domestic animal vets) and livestock vets... i worked for a domestic animal veterinary clinic for a while. I know some people have a tendency to like one sort of animal more than another (cat person speaking here), but that doesn't mean I neglect to take care of my dog to the best of my ability. The vet not being a cat person is no excuse for not taking care of the cat.

and there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth...

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

i agree whole-heartedly.
there IS no good excuse for that.

[plsurkity.livejournal.com]

*screams* want. to. punch.

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

moving out here has made me realize how sheltered i have been from the number of people who treat animals as though their lives are valueless. i really met hardly anyone like that in nova. in the philly area i met a few assholes who didn't give their dogs any love, but at least they didn't beat them. out here? well there's a lot more country in the midwest than there is on the east coast and with rural areas come people who dump their pets (usually from the city) and people who keep barn cats as feral or semi-feral colonies. and some of these people are responsible about it and call the vet when there is a problem and fix their animals after a litter or two....but damn are there a LOT of people who don't even think about what they do. i have similar instincts to you. i'd love to sufficate each one of them in a bucket of rotting abortions. but that wouldn't help the animals any and it wouldn't make them learn. so that learning is what i wish on them in truth, and all the pain of realizing what they've done.

[dragonintherain.livejournal.com]

GAH!

[clare-dragonfly.livejournal.com]

what the hell, what the hell, what the hell.

I hope so.

a vet who's not a cat person?! WTF?

[linacandle.livejournal.com]

I've never heard that babies can make you die sooner. Do you have any research I could look at?

But another reason to hate kids and love birth control for me!

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

having kids like most people do in the states is pretty safe. it is when you have SUPER BIG families that the mom needs to worry about her health. and things like pregnancy vitamins and proper nutrition can help mothers stay healthy through more pregancies - but this is not the case with stray or feral animals who have no one looking after their nutrition.
most of the articles i was able to search and fine were about animals, not humans. i think this is because we don't tend to have as many babies in the US. but i got this from dietary recommendations from the FAO - http://www.fao.org/docrep/004/ad454e/ad454e07.htm
"Frequent pregnancies drain a mother’s nutritional resources and cause further malnutrition, which increases the likelihood of low birth-weight, delayed development and infant mortality." - which is more about the baby than the mother, but still impacts the mother
i also found this (http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/news/Frequent_pregnancies_exhausting_mothers_71148.shtml) from uganda, and this (http://www.unscn.org/archives/scnnews11/ch12.htm) which is from a US study.

[linacandle.livejournal.com]

That's super awesome! Thanks for the info! I feel bad for the octo-mom, just a little, if this is true for humans too.

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

yeah, octo-mom(kinda makes her sound like a superhero) may very well have some health problems in her future.
i believe osteoperosis was a lot more common in this country as well when women were still having tons of kids here (and i guess some still are, but it's less common).