A remark that deflates me like a popped balloon

[Redsquirrel]

Your animals are beautiful!!! I have a green cheeked conure too "Kiwi" Love him to bits.

Yeah I get the snide remarks, etc., But I don't care. I am the one looking after them and they return soooo much love to me. It's the people who don't have animals that I feel sorry for. But surprisingly most people just LOVE my chickens and think it's cool that I have them in suburbia. Now I have chicks EVERYONE wants to come to my house and see them-lol
I think my kids have really learnt alot from me having animals all their lives.
They have had so many cool growing up experiences, learn' t the facts of life from seeing baby animals born. Learn't compassion and respect for all living creatures. How is any of that wrong? Some people just need to be educated.

 

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

YUP every time I get a new chicken/or chickens I hear that. Now that I'm thinking of getting new laying hens people tell me I'm cruel not to keep my old hens. That's not why I got into this..>I want fresh eggs...if my hens stop laying they get retired and I get ones that DO lay eggs. That doesn't make me a bad person but some people think so I guess. I take VERY good care of my hens while they live with me (about 2 years) then I find new homes for them...I don't kill them.

 

[RAWR]

lol i have ALOT of animals..and now one tells me this..lol

 

[OlliOlliOlli]

Slightly O/T but I can understand why they wanted to come to my home.

I was hesitant at first but then I remembered this shelter specializes primarily with re-homing dogs that get bad raps, like Rottweilers and PitBulls. This area has had its share of dog fighting, gang violence, drug trafficking, and counts of animal abuse. They didn't care that my house actually looked like a tornado crossed with a pig pen, they were just making sure I owned the place with liability insurance, had a fully fenced backyard, and that my animals were happy and well-treated. I can respect that they weren't so desperate to dump the dogs on people without meeting them.

 

[Davaroo]

Quote:
This was about people picking on people for "having (too many) animals." Opinions vary on the matter, as we've learned, and it sort of filters down to this:

We mostly want people to leave us alone to our own choices. We love our animals and we want as many as we want.

I does seem I veered off course with my earlier comment, and I did not intend to hijack nor offend. But it is relevant if we take the free-choice spirit of this thread into account.

Since the shelter essentially "owns" the animal it takes in, paying for rehabilitation and upkeep of the creature until such time as it is "adopted," they have the right to impose restrictions on it's new ownership. Well.... if the adoption is free, that is. Not many of them are, these days.
However, if I'm paying those costs and any fees as arise at time of ownership - then all such restrictions fall away as I exit their building.

Thereafter, I do not expect a person, employee or appointed watchdog to come to my house and tell me I can or cannot own the animal - according to imposed standards - if I have paid in kind for it. It is the height of arrogance to assume that right.
In a broad scope, it is State control of the individual... taken to the lowest level.

In retrospect, it struck me as an intriguing duality.
Here we have people say, on the one hand, they want to "own as many animals as they want." While on the other hand, they willingly patronize and submit to a draconian establishment that regulates that choice.

Interesting....

 

[Bluemoon420]

I foster occasionally, and while I can understand to a point why they might want to see the place where these adopted/foster animals are going. I do think that some places take it over the top.
I had one place actually ask for a note from my husband showing I had permission to bring a foster dog there! What??? Hello, husband.. Not only that, but I am HELPING these people rehab a neglected and abused dog. I promptly told that person to "go fly a kite".

I do agree with both davaroo, and calebs acre because even though it is the shelter's best interest to make sure the animal is not going to another abusive home which can result in the animal being brought back to the shelter ( or worse). I do think some places get a little out of hand in what they consider an inspection of the person adopting the animal.

Bluemoon

 

[Davaroo]

Quote:
Fostering is a different thing, of course. There is some expectation that the animal will be returned/rehomed in as good or better condition.
And I do understand the caring motivation that is behind wanting adopted animals to go to a good home. It is the transcendence from caring to control and submission that is puzzling to me.
Im reminded of the following quote at times like this:

"Of all tyrannies, that which is sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies**. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end - for they do so with the sole approval of their own conscience." - - C.S. Lewis

** (I love that... omnipitent moral busybodies! C.S. Lewis was the man...)

 

[Bluemoon420]

Quote:
Fostering is a different thing, of course. There is some expectation that the animal will be returned/rehomed in as good or better condition.
And I do understand the caring motivation that is behind wanting the adopted animals to go to a good home. It is the transcendence from caring to control and submission that is puzzling to me.

I agree with you completely. I have seen with my own eyes some of those places that get a little too controling. To me, that just hinders the shelter, and hurts the animal too. They don't like being there.

Bluemoon

 

[quiltnchik]

Quote:
Sounds like some very close kin of mine. He and his wife live in a $500,000 home that they let their dogs pee and poop all over the place in. It doesn't matter what type or size your house is, IMO. I always tell people I would love to have a doublewide on land, and that I was raised "trailer trash" and will probably die that way, too! You should see the looks on their faces!!

 

[quiltnchik]

Quote: