These Cats Are So pwn3d

In a piece on Slate, the appropriately-named Jon Katz muses on the difference between calling people “pet owners” instead of “companion animal guardians.” The cookie quote:

My IDA packet contained a testimonial from a Michael Mountain of the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. “People of other genders, races and even age groups were once treated as property in this country,” Mountain wrote. “Now, it is time for ‘people’ of other species to be accorded the same simple dignity of being recognized, not as someone else’s property but as beings in their own right.”

Mountain couldn’t have made the point more dramatically—or offensively. I don’t care to jump in with a moral value system that equates my beloved border collies with human slaves. Nothing about this comparison helps animals. It distorts their true natures and diminishes ours.

I will be “guardian” to the fourteen four cats that live here when they start paying the guardian rate. Freeloading entitles you to possession status. Keep that in mind, brother, if you ever find yourself down on your luck and needing a place to crash.

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I Don’t Want To Hear It

Japanese inventors are going to sell a device that translates cat meows into words, based upon the pitch, timbre, tambre, and who knows what else. Great. This technological innovation nearly matches the inclusion of the big, hairy string on their backs that you can pull to hear them make a noise.

As a cat owner myself, I can honestly say I don’t care what they mean when they meow. I imagine it’s usually the same pitiful meowing about their own quest for permahomeostasis and the shortcomings of the current stimuli in their environment. Kind of like talking to me during core business hours.

Besides, the cat doesn’t give a schnuck about what I am saying at any given time, so I afford it the same courtesy.

(There, that should be enough cover so that my esteemed spouse would never expect it for Christmas.)

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