I admit that for many years now, I’ve had a hard time living in a world that I find completely out of control and downright evil. The things people do…to other people and to innocent animals makes me want to bang my head against a wall, commit suicide, or grab a rifle and kill all of the bad guys. (Note: I do not own a rifle, do not intend to buy one and do not know how to shoot one.)
I would have no problem, for example, putting a bullet through the head of anyone who abuses an animal and for me, that starts with crating dogs. Think about it. Our entire country has come to believe that it’s appropriate to take someone’s baby, put it in a cage without food or even water for several hours a day, often in a lonely room, and that’s called housetraining. “Oh, he loves his ‘room’,” they will tell you. Right. Tell me another lie.
My parents and now me have housetrained dogs quite easily without the use of any type of cage or other restraining device. It’s called common sense. You walk the puppy in between hours of love sessions because you have a little baby in your house who’s been taken from his or her mother and siblings and that can’t feel good.
So you provide tons of love, you walk the puppy and at night, you walk the puppy again and when it whimpers from its little bed right next to your bed, you get up and walk it again.
If you leave your house, puppy can stay in a gated kitchen, preferably one with a window, or another room in your house that offers a glimpse of the outside world.
I guess I’m saying that having a cat, dog, puppy or kitten or other innocent living creature in your home requires a lot of love and a healthy dose of common sense. Would you like to be in a crate, thirsty and lonely for hours? Would you like to be on a chain in a yard? Do you want to be stuck in a basement or locked in a bathroom? Then why on earth would you do that to a helpless animal?
My dogs have never had bad behaviors such as chewing on furniture or chews. I call excessive chewing “crated dog syndrome.” Your dog can’t say, “Fuck you for putting me in that fucking cage,” but he can chew up your dining room table legs. And so it goes.
Another sore subject with me is people who have pets who are not allowed in the living room, or on a chair. If you are too lazy to clean your house, please don’t bring an animal into it (and by the way, when I’ve met or heard of people who have these rules about their pets, they are usually people who live in a dumpy trailer or otherwise filthy homes)…so I wonder–what are you protecting?
My animals have free reign of our house…it takes a lot of work, but it’s just a house and it’s just furniture and it’s just soon to be gone carpet replaced with wooden flooring. We live with them fully, we love them fully, and the joy they bring us is immeasurable.
I don’t know how crating got to be so mainstream in the U.S. I guess Americans, who have to have it all even if they don’t have time or can’t afford it, figured that they could have a dog and just put it away for a few hours when it wasn’t convenient for them.
Sometimes, people just make me sick.
(with apologies for sinking to the f-word, but I needed the most foul word possible and that’s it)
