[Today’s run: 4 miles]
I get along ok with animals. When I was a kid we had dogs and a cat and a couple of pigeons. And I think I got along ok with them.
My wife is an animal person, she really likes animals. Since we’ve been married we have had dogs, cats, birds, lizards, horses, and various rodents. And since moving to Mississippi we now have bees and chickens.
I’ve never had an animal for farming purposes until the bees and chickens. So my attitude up until now has been that these critters are more-or-less my responsibility to feed and pay the vet bills and get the dog license, etc. etc. But with farm animals I think there is supposed to be a payback of some sort where the animal is good for something more then sitting around and eating.
We have had the chickens for about a month now, maybe less than that. And one of them is now ill and living in a cage in the house. We are feeding it from a dropper and hope it will come around.
I think if I were a real farmer I probably would have been eating it for Sunday dinner already.
But who knows. Maybe it will perk up and be a star egg-laying chicken. We can always eat it for dinner sometime later.
Back to being an animal person: I am not one of those. I would be perfectly fine to live in a house with my wife and no dog and no cats and nothing else. Animals on the outside and people on the inside. That would be fine with me. It’s not that I don’t like them, I would just rather someone else took them to the vet and paid for the food and did all of that stuff, someone who is lonely or enjoys extra doses of chaos in their life. I’m fine without.
One reply on “Animals”
I agree. Well, agreed. After decades of thinking about it, about a year ago I got a rescue pup that doesn’t shed. He is an indoor dog and I didn’t want my poor housekeeping habits to be too obvious as discarded fur carpeted the floor. There have been vet bills for shots and checkups and over-the-counter monthly flea control drugs that are greater than the cost of food. My view that pets are for emotionally needy people hasn’t changed but I have changed my view that focusing on a pet isolates a person. That has been modified. By walking the dog, I have met and had conversations with many more neighbors than when I was walking solo. Also at dog parks – I meet a lot of people that way. Owing to the dog and casual carpool, I meet and chat with maybe a dozen “strangers” a week.
That being said, I would not have a dog where it gets cold outside in the winter. That would be too much bother.
When I had laying hens and tired of them they were butchered and the quality of the meet was superior.