People and Pets

Since I am never going to finish the post I have been working on since Monday I am starting from scratch. In a nutshell, we had a crazy but awesome weekend with the fam. And now, since I have scrapped my original post, I am going to get up on my soapbox for a second. (Jenni, you're going to laugh at me and probably roll your eyes ;) This morning I read a post on Freecycle offering a kitten. Here is an excerpt:

please must be able to take care of the kitten and please have it be an inside cat. i dont like when people have animals and keep them outside.

Those evil people who let animals live outside, you know, in their natural habitat. What are they thinking?!? There seems to be a general consensus around here that having 'outside' pets cruel to the animal. People will actually turn you in for letting your pet stay out in less than ideal weather conditions. My neighbor has a dog, and when the weather gets bad, he gets special treatment. If it rains, he has a raincoat. If it is cold, he has a puffy-marshmallow jacket. If its raining, there's an umbrella carried to cover him while he does his biz-ness. If it snows, they shovel a path for him to go. Every now and then, Charlie tries to remind himself he's actually a dog by catching a rabbit. This behavior, of course, is not appreciated by his owners. One has to wonder, what did animals do before us humans decided to domesticate them and keep them indoors? Did they all freeze to death, or line up for meals at the local doggie-soup kitchen? I think not. They did just fine, and gasp! Hunted for their own food. Now I do realize there are some exceptions, since humans have been breeding dogs to have certain characteristics, like being small. I don't think a Chihuahua would survive a PA winter. However, for the most part, it would seem that God equipped animals with what they need to stay warm, or cool, and to find their own food. Keeping a pet inside seems more of the owner's preference than a real necessity. Ironically, I will be receiving a duck later today which I will be babysitting for the weekend. A lady from our church gets ducklings and keeps them in their yard til they get big enough to release into the wild. That is, until she found out that they get eaten by other animals when left to fend for themselves. So now, she is keeping the duck indefinitely. I don't mind at all, because how fun will it be to babysit a duck for the weekend?! Did I mention that the duck has to sleep inside? (he he he he)