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I love pets, I don’t own any but when I’m around them, I care for them. But they’re still animals, yeah? Yeah. My roommate has a little monkey who sleeps on same bed with her. She literally adores the monkey like a child. Sometimes I feel it’s so abnormal.
I’m not sure why people have a problem with this. If a person owns a pet and takes care of it properly, obeying laws and not mistreating it, I’m not sure why anyone should care how much a person loves or spoils their pets. Live and let live, right? Most of the time when I hear this question, it’s from a new person that has entered into the life of the pet owner – a new boyfriend, girlfriend, or some other new relationship. These people usually just don’t understand human/pet relationships, and some are even unadmittedly jealous of the attention the pet receives. They start judging and making demands, asking the person to choose the person over the pet, or creating some condition that forces the owner to sacrifice the relationship with their pet in some way.
If you are that person, you need to just stop. There is nothing wrong with a person loving an animal. I’m not very familiar with other animals, but when you live with a dog, actually live with one – become its “person” – you quickly learn that you are the center of the dog’s universe. That is just the way dogs are – a person becomes the only important thing in that dog’s life. A dog only wants two things in this world: Your attention and food. When you leave, they just lay around waiting for you to come home. When you get home, the dog will follow you around just so they can keep their eyes locked on your presence. It’s kind of hard to not to see them as family, and it’s hard to not want to spoil them. And it’s also a bit cruel to the pet to ask someone to suddenly break that relationship. It’s their life.
When a person treats their pet like it’s “their child,” it is because they receive loyalty, companionship, and affection from that pet. It brings them joy in life.
Life is too damn hard and even lonely for a lot of people, to make a deal out of such a stupid thing. Let people find joy where they please. What I think is that the person has found something that makes them happy. You should embrace it.
It’s entirely up to people how they regard their pets. People think that I’m obsessed with my cats, yes I am. They are with me 24 hours a day, well most days. They rely on me for food, for comfort, for playtime, for keeping them well with decent food, and vet treatment, if necessary. I worry to death if I can’t find them quickly, which is why I have a beeper on their collars, and if one has wandered out of range from the beeper unit, panic sets in. I have trawled round snowbound streets until 2am trying to find a curious cat exploring his new neighbourhood. They are almost wholly dependant on me to keep them happy. I live alone and they keep me happy, just by being them.
I have sat up all night with sick cats, I have wept for months when a cat has had to be euthanised. When my dog became very ill, I have lain on the floor at the vet where my dog was lying comfortably when all hope was lost, gently talking to him and hugging him, trying desperately not to break down and panic him.
What constitutes a member of a family? There are some families who don’t get on/dislike each other/couldn’t care less. Why should anyone consider that their value as family members should override the value that people place on their pets? Why would ‘loved’ humans in a family be jealous of love given to a cat or dog?
Given the ‘burning building’ scenario, who would I rush in and rescue first? A brother who means little to me or one of my cats? I don’t even have to think. The cats win every time. Given the same scenario with a loved human, my heart would break for the other one, whichever one I rescued. Let people call them what they like. Why should there be a ‘cut-off’ point where pets are not allowed to be called ‘family’? I have been called ‘absurd’, ‘stupid’, and other choice names by members of Quora when writing things about pets. Why should they care how I feel about my pets? Am I taking something away from them? If these people turned out to be ‘family’, why would I suddenly declare allegiance towards them above my pets just because they are human and we might share blood?