Halloween Kitty

[snopes]

Let me start by saying that I DO NOT celebrate Halloween. I don't put up pictures of ghosts or goblins and I don't hand out candy to the "Trick or Treat - ers". We have all seen pictures of black cats, though, with bowed back, tail in the air and every hair sticking straight out. Thus the title.

Clyde is a Burmese cat that allows me to cohabitate with him and his sister Bonnie. Normally Clyde is a friendly little creature, non-violent in nature, and content to let things be as they are. He even tolerates his 'Niece', Salida, a golden retriever, when she comes to visit. … Until one day…

Rocky, a border collie, and his 'Mommy' came to visit. As expected Clyde disappeared into another room and Rocky was lying on the living floor listening to the conversation between his 'Mommy' and myself. Imagine my surprise to hear definite 'Kitty Cursing' coming from the other room. Out stalked Clyde, back high, tail in the air and every hair sticking straight out, muttering curses that would have caused me to spit soap bubbles had my mother heard any such uttering from me. He swaggered into the room and attacked the unsuspecting Rocky, all the time muttering his opinion of Rocky and all of dogdom. After a second attack he stalked back to the other room where he proceeded to mutter and growl for several minutes.

What caused my usually mild-mannered cat to react in such a manner? I don't know but maybe it was because Rocky was a male and Clyde thought he should be the only male in the house. I really don't know. He treats Salida, his 'niece', with respect - even tolerance.

Jesus tells us: "Let me tell you how to experience real happiness. Do something good to those who don't like you, say something good about them who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat and exploit you to further their own interests." (In Luke 6:27, 28 GNB) Later in the chapter he admonishes us to turn the other cheek and if someone asks for our coat, give him our cloak also.

We are human beings, created in the image of God. He expects more from us than to retaliate. Clyde doesn't know any better. We do!

[snopes]

Honestly, it's like they're not even trying any more. Just write down a personal anecdote (no matter how trivial), tack a Bible verse (no matter how irrelevant) onto the end, and voilà -- instant glurge!

- snopes

[Buckle Up]

Originally Posted by snopes

Just write down a personal anecdote (no matter how trivial), tack a Bible verse (no matter how irrelevant) onto the end, and voilà -- instant glurge!

Last week my boss came to work with chocolate chip mini-muffins to share with the office staff. I never thought of chocolate as being very "muffin-esque," as my traditional Christian upbringing and my conservative, kind-hearted but strict parents taught me that muffins should only be formed of fruit or grain - and maybe, if you want to go really crazy, walnuts. So I said to my boss, "If you're going to bring something chocolate, why didn't you just bring Hershey bars?"

"Then God said, 'Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.' And it was so."

Every food substance has its God-ordained purpose under heaven. Let your muffin be a muffin, to the glory of God!

[Artemis]

Originally Posted by snopes

What caused my usually mild-mannered cat to react in such a manner? I don't know but maybe it was because Rocky was a male and Clyde thought he should be the only male in the house. I really don't know. He treats Salida, his 'niece', with respect - even tolerance.

Wow. Respect and even tolerance? Methinks the writer transposed those two words.

Also, was I the only one who thought that Rocky the dog was suposed to be Clyde's "mommy" at first? (I'm assuming that Rocky came over with his mommy, the owner's friend.)

Calling Salida Rocky's niece seems a bit much. Cousin, maybe, but niece?

[Dropbear]

Okay - that's it! I've had enough.

Pet lovers of the world listen up. YOU ARE NOT YOUR PET'S MOMMY OR DADDY! You might love them and treasure their part in your life but you are not related to them nor are they related to each other - they are different species and relate to each other as different species do.

Your pets are also not rational and sentient - they do not think using language and logic (not that I do all the time either, but still). They react according to instinct and training you cannot ascribe human rationalisations for action to animal behaviour.

Thank you.

I would also note that it is intersting that the two most recent egregious examples on the above behaviour occurred in the glurge gallery and as such I would suggest that a tendency to act as if your pet is a human being may suggest a predisposition to also believing that your recent epiphany about the relationship between your car problems and the behaviour of an omnipotent deity are worth sending to as many people on the planet as possible.

Dropbear

[Aimee Evilpixie]

I call myself my cat's mommy in a non-serious way. I am her kitty-mommy. I do all the things to her that I would do to a child. (Not that I would leave a child alone for eight hours a day, but you know what I mean.) I don't call her my baby, but when I talk to her I will explain things as, "Glico, when Mommy and Daddy are laying in the bed, not moving, that means they want to sleep. This is not a good time to jump on them." I know she can't actually understand what I'm saying, but it amuses me.

Also, when she wanders around meowing insistently, it really reminds me of a little kid going, "Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!"

Now, first of all, let me tell you that I DO NOT celebrate Halloween, or as I like to call it, "That Day When Satan Possesses All the Unworthy and Evil Stalks the Night and Those Snot-Faced Neighbor Brats Expect Candy Bars Just For Knocking on My Door and My House is Targeted By Eggs from the Very Cloaca of Beelzebub Himself!" But the propaganda from this day of iniquity is, tragically, ubiquitous, and thus we all know what a Halloween cat looks like. I chose to use this Devil's Day concept to refer to my precious darling kitty, as well as using it for the title of my missive directly from TEH LROD.

Now, since you would never understand any part of the Bible without some form of analogy, however inane, allow me to enlighten you with a tale of depth and wisdom. It all started in the litterbox...

[Morrigan]

Originally Posted by Dropbear

Okay - that's it! I've had enough.

Pet lovers of the world listen up. YOU ARE NOT YOUR PET'S MOMMY OR DADDY! You might love them and treasure their part in your life but you are not related to them nor are they related to each other - they are different species and relate to each other as different species do.

Your pets are also not rational and sentient - they do not think using language and logic (not that I do all the time either, but still). They react according to instinct and training you cannot ascribe human rationalisations for action to animal behaviour.

Thank you.

I am my dog's mommy. I raised her from a new-born. Yes, my dog is sentient. Tell me that Alex & Rico aren't sentient?

Sentient: having the power of perception by the senses; conscious.
2. characterized by sensation and consciousness.
–noun 3. a person or thing that is sentient.
4. Archaic. the conscious mind.


We've gotten into this discussion before-and I honestly don't want to again.

Morrigan

[Morrigan]

Originally Posted by Dropbear

Okay - that's it! I've had enough.

Pet lovers of the world listen up. YOU ARE NOT YOUR PET'S MOMMY OR DADDY! You might love them and treasure their part in your life but you are not related to them nor are they related to each other - they are different species and relate to each other as different species do.

So, following that line of logic, if someone adopts a kid, they're not their mommy or daddy? Because they wouldn't be related to each other.

Morrigan

[One-Fang]

There's a legal definition of "mother" and "father", and parents adopting a child take on that definition.

A better analogy might be to say you raise your sister's child after she dies in childbirth. You ain't the mommy and never will be (unless you adopt), but it's likely that this affectation may still be used, for convenience.

I am my cat's and dog's mummy. I didn't give birth to them and don't have a legal definition behind me, but it's the word I use. I take care of them. Just too weird to say "Shadow's primary simian care-giver".

[imjustasteph]

Originally Posted by Buckleupp

Last week my boss came to work with chocolate chip mini-muffins to share with the office staff. I never thought of chocolate as being very "muffin-esque," as my traditional Christian upbringing and my conservative, kind-hearted but strict parents taught me that muffins should only be formed of fruit or grain - and maybe, if you want to go really crazy, walnuts. So I said to my boss, "If you're going to bring something chocolate, why didn't you just bring Hershey bars?"

"Then God said, 'Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.' And it was so."

Every food substance has its God-ordained purpose under heaven. Let your muffin be a muffin, to the glory of God!

You just let my muffin be!!
lol

If you've got your mind set that a certain statement is fact, it seems like you can use anything to prove it. My grandmom has, in conversations past, 'proved' to me that money and love were the same thing. I gave up arguing. My mom recently used my stepdad's attempted molestation of my sister as proof that my guy is no good for me.

And boy if God is good everything proves it.....

[imjustasteph]

Originally Posted by One-Fang

There's a legal definition of "mother" and "father", and parents adopting a child take on that definition.

A better analogy might be to say you raise your sister's child after she dies in childbirth. You ain't the mommy and never will be (unless you adopt), but it's likely that this affectation may still be used, for convenience.

I am my cat's and dog's mummy. I didn't give birth to them and don't have a legal definition behind me, but it's the word I use. I take care of them. Just too weird to say "Shadow's primary simian care-giver".

Don't forget, some of us are just in the habit of calling ourselves mommy and daddy. My grandparents, after all their years of raising kids, still call each other 'mama' and 'daddy' even with their youngest thirty years grown. And so, they refer to themselves that way to their pets too. "Mama, do you want some ice cream?" "[pets name] go find Daddy!"

What's wrong with that?

[Troodon]

I don't have pets now but I have had some and I've interacted with animals. I think that the default assumption should be that they do think like humans, not that they don't. We only have experience of how our own minds work, but we can look at other animals and see them display behaviors similar to some of ours and we can study their brains and see that they are structured similarly to ours. Thus, I think it's reasonable to assume a similarity in mental processes unless there's either behavioral or anatomical evidence to the contrary (this is, of course, the same logic used when arguing that other humans are "people" too).