A good friend of mine and I were talking this past Saturday; we were getting caught up on lots of things and the topic of pets came up. She asked if we still had a dog; my reply was no just one cat. I told her cats are like kids; you have to care for them, and I’d be happy not to have any.

My friend proceeded to tell me about her three year old dog, one of those that are so small they can fit into a woman’s purse, and all the problems it was having. We discussed how we tolerate our pets peeing (or worse) all over our carpet and she lamented that she was ready for new carpet but that her husband said they weren’t going to get new carpet as long as they had a dog; we both concurred.

She mentioned that her Vet had just told her that her dog will need knee replacement surgery soon, and then follow up therapy. It was at this point that our conversation took a radically different turn.

I saw my friend shift gears from being a loving dog owner to being a logical human being. She explained that there was no way she was paying for knee replacement and therapy for a dog; and asked me if I would like a dog. I declined the offer. One of her adult children thought she was cruel, because it meant at some point she was going to have to put the dog down.

Her adult son said to her “I’m glad I’m not a dog and living with you!” He felt his mother was being cruel and uncaring for the family dog—willing to see it die rather than provide a knee replacement surgery and therapy.

This morning I was sitting in Panera Bread reading the local newspaper and in one section on the front page were photos and an article about The Pet Expo that was held in town over the weekend at the Convention Center. The photos extended to a second page. In one photo there was a lady carrying her tiny pooch as she browsed through doggie clothing.

My mind was drawn back to the conversation I had with my friend whose dog needed knee replacement surgery. We began to talk about what we as humans have done to animals by making them our pets. We’ve taken an animal out of its natural environment and domesticated it.

While domesticating our pets we’ve treated them like human children; feeding and caring for them, and we’ve done it so much that a dog needs knee replacement at three years old. What three year old dog in the wild would need knee replacement? I read a Facebook posting of another person I know whose cat was diagnosed diabetic and needed insulin shots daily—this was a fourteen pound cat. What cat in the wild has diabetes?

Our church is a few doors down from a pet boutique; there is clothing, and strollers and specialized toys, food, and products for pets, just as if they were human. In fact, many pet owners refer to their pets as members of their family.

I think this is reflection of just how messed up our world is; we dress up our pets, we provide better healthcare for them than 90% of the world’s people have and we feed them better than that 90% of the world.  

I can’t help but think that God might have something to say to us one day in eternity when we are questioned about what we did with our money. Might God say something like “I gave you the means to care for AIDS orphans in Africa, and the money to care for starving children in the slums of India, and I gave you money to spread the message of the sacrifice of Jesus to child prostitutes in Thailand, and the money to help a Cherokee woman be liberated from alcoholism; what did you do with it?”

And, in that moment will we acknowledge to the Creator that we paid for knee replacement surgery for our dogs, insulin for our cats, food for fish, and a running wheel for our pet rats so that we could feel good about caring for some living thing?

 

What an indictment on us; I just picked this conversation up off of Facebook today (Friday, April 3, 2009)

 

Facebook Person A: I think my cat needs kitty gastric bypass

 

Facebook Person B: Hehe mine too! I feel so bad..I switched her to indoor formula and try to get her to run around the house and she’s still ginormous! She has knots of fur I can’t comb out around her tail because she’s too fat to clean herself that far back! Nuts!

 

Facebook Person C: Our Susie is morbidly obese. The others are normal weight, but we buy indoor formula anyway. She eats more than all the others…so, so, sad.