Repeat after me: – Veganism is not affordable – Veganism is not cruelty free – Veganism is not the best choice for everyone
Repeat after me -I’m an idiot and wrong. -Veganism can be made affordable. –Veganism is fucking cruelty free. That’s what it’s all about. – Veganism is the best choice for everyone, if everyone did it. -I’m a fucking asshole for making this completely wrong text post and should shut the hell up now.
People are literally starving in South America because all the Quinoa crop is being exported mainly for white vegans who want to live “cruelty-free” but don’t care about brown people as much as they do about animals.
plus, 4 of the 8 most common food allergies (soy, wheat, peanuts, and tree nuts) are common vegan substitutes.
o shit
i would literally starve to death if i couldn’t eat cheese or meats because my body cannot process nuts as they are too rough on my intestines and cause inflammation
Veganism is incredibly expensive depending on where you live, mostly if there are no local farms near you. Plant food prices skyrocket, and food deserts exist.
Veganism is not even close to cruelty free. You cannot be cruelty free in this country (USA) unless you 100% grow your own food because we use slave labor to pick it. Plus this doesn’t factor in all the harm being caused by the transport of your food, by the truck that carried it around.
Veganism is not the best choice for everyone, because some people cannot survive off of a plant based diet. I had tried for a good while, and my chronic illnesses spiked from it. Plus the constant monitoring to make sure I was receiving adequate nutrients triggered my ED to hell and back.
Veganism is a great way to start lowering your negative effect on the planet, but that is all it is, a starting place. Your work is not done just because you became vegan and you do not get to throw stones at others because you still live in a glass house.
Furthermore – it is absolutely possible to lower your footprint while still consuming animal products – you just have to be selective about what kinds and where they are sourced from. I have a permaculture based garden planned out for when we get land that actually has a smaller footprint than the typical vegan who buys everything at a store does.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Actually, none of us can survive on a plant-based diet. We cannot manufacture B12, and the so-called “plant-based” sources of B12, it turns out, don’t produce it in a form we can digest.
B12 is found in all animal products.
Additionally, although humans can manufacture taurine (only found in meat), not all of us can manufacture enough taurine. This is why some people get sick when they go vegetarian.
To survive on a vegan diet you need to artificially supplement B12 and possibly taurine. Period.
A diet that requires artificial supplementation is, by definition, unhealthy. And while the cost of vegan B12 supplements is low, when you’re already paying more for your food… Taurine supplementation, if you happen to be one of the people who needs it, is another added expense and hassle. A few vegans have also found it necessary to supplement carnitine, which is considerably more expensive. Oh, and most vegans don’t get enough calcium and end up with bone problems. Many are also Vitamin D deficient, especially if living at high latitudes, if dark skinned, or if religiously using sunscreen. And Vitamin D2 (plant derived) is not as easily absorbed as D3 (which ONLY comes from animals), so you need even more of it.
Then there’s protein.
I personally cannot properly digest nuts. I react the way lactose intolerant people do to milk if I consume pistachios, walnuts, or pecans. Almonds are actively toxic to me. Hazelnuts mess with my brain.
Because I am on thyroid medication, I am not supposed to consume large quantities of soy, as it can make my thyroid worse, throwing off my dosage. I can have some, but I cannot use it as a major protein source. This is also true for trans men (the phytoestrogens intefere with testosterone therapy), cis men with low testosterone (same reason) and women with a family history of breast cancer (elevates risk). Excessive soy consumption has also been linked to early puberty in girls (Again, phytoestrogens) and reproductive/sexual problems in both sexes. Eating a bit of soy is fine, but tofu should not be used as a meat substitute except for the occasional meal.
This limits my access to non-animal proteins to beans and grains. If I was gluten intolerant as well (I’m not, but it’s in my family), it would be a real problem. The only dairy substitute available to me is rice milk (and rice causes many of the same problems environmentally as raising beef).
Oh, but it’s better for the environment, right?
Nope.
In addition to the already-mentioned quinoa, we’re cutting down rain forest in Mexico to grow avocados. Rice production is almost as bad for the environment as factory-based beef production for similar reasons. Also, plant-based foods, esp. fruit and fresh vegetables, are more likely to end up being wasted.
Studies indicate that if we all gave up meat tomorrow, all 7 billion of us gave up animal products forever, the good side would be the reduction in antibiotic use and greenhouse gas emissions.
How about the bad side?
1.3 billion people would lose their jobs overnight. 1.3 billion. 987 of them are poor.
Another thing that Ban Eating Meat Tomorrow types forget is that veganism is not necessarily the most effective use of farmland.
Uh, what?
The statement that if everyone switched to a vegan diet we would need a fraction of our current farmland assumes all farmland is created equal.
It simply is not.
I suspect that a lot of this perspective either comes from city dwellers who have no clue about farming or from people in the US breadbasket where there is a lot of high quality farmland suitable for raising food for humans.
The last global census in 2008 said that at that time, if all 6 billion people went vegan, it would need 3,068,444,911 acres of arable land. At the time there was about 3,212,369,959 acres of arable land: That is to say land suitable for raising crops humans can eat.
However, we’re building on, or otherwise destroying, arable land at the rate of about 1% a year and the population has grown.
We literally do not have enough arable land to feed everyone a plant-based diet.
And there are parts of the world that have a worse proportion of arable land to land only suitable for pasture than the US. Scotland comes immediately to mind. People in these places would have to import most of their food. I’m not sure Iceland could survive without eating fish.
If we all gave up eating meat tomorrow many of us would starve. I’m not exaggerating or being alarmist.
I’m also not criticizing people who choose not to eat animal products (just please make sure you get the required nutrients).
I am criticizing the “I don’t eat animal products and nobody else should either” crowd. Because it’s not that simple.
Also, bluntly, vitamin B12 deficiency can cause mood disturbances and paranoia…
But again, if you have to consume artificial supplements for whatever reason (unless it’s a personal absorption issue) your diet is not healthy.
16 oz of honey requires 1152 bees to travel 112,000 miles and visit 4.5 million flowers.
Most of the honey we get at supermarkets and stores don’t come from natural hives.
Honey is an animal product, produced when bees digest nectar they have collected and then regurgitate it. It is an animal product, just like an egg or milk. Yes, a bee is an insect and not technically considered an animal by many people, but a bee’s body changes the composition of what it ingests, just like other animals.
However, there is another reason vegans won’t eat honey, and that is because it is harmful to another living creature. According to Daniel Hammer, bees do experience pain and suffering while they are being exploited for their products (not just honey but also beeswax, royal jelly, and more). There is simply no way beekeepers, humane or otherwise, can avoid harming or killing bees while they are extracting the bees’ products. Many vegans choose their lifestyle because they wish to avoid harming any other creature, and so they choose not to eat honey.
Check out this couple of articles that are pretty complete about everything around this topic 🙂
3 Reasons Not to Eat Honey > This one explain about the environmental damage and how we are killing the bees.
As a beekeeper, let me say the following.
As a vegan, you depend upon beekeeping. It doesn’t matter if you never use beeswax or eat honey. You still depend on beekeeping. It is absolutely impossible not to.
Because here’s the secret; you know all those delicious fruits and vegetables you eat? You wouldn’t have them if it wasn’t for bees, and here’s another secret; those bees were probably either kept by the farmer who grew them for the purpose of pollinating his/her crops, or moved to the farm during pollination season by a beekeeper.
If you’ve ever eaten a cherry, almond, blueberry, tomato, melon, squash, raspberry, strawberry…hell, most fruits or veggies…you’ve benefited from beekeeping. There is simply no way to avoid it. If you leave it up to whatever pollinators happen to stop in from the surrounding area, your yields will suffer dramatically, which means less produce and less money for the farmer. Therefore, the easy and universally preferred method is to plop a few hives on the property. The girls will make sure that just about every last almond/cherry/blueberry flower is pollinated (They’re VERY good at what they do) and you can happily harvest a bumper crop. This is a universally used practice among food producers.
And do you know the best way to help make sure the bees survive?
Keep them. Organically, without using any chemicals. And here’s a secret about beekeeping; you inspect the hives whether or not you take honey, to make sure the bees are healthy and doing well. (There are mites and diseases that can severely harm bees, and even as an organic beekeeper who doesn’t use chemicals on her girls there are methods I use to prevent/treat things like varroa mite infestation that can kill an otherwise healthy hive).
And yes, when you open a hive to inspect it, you might crush one or two bees. But tell me, honestly, that you’ve never killed an insect. Bees themselves will kill sick/non productive members of the hive to ensure the health of the hive as a whole; I don’t see how my accidentally squishing one to ensure the health of the other 50,000 is any different.
And this is what all beekeepers do. And if you, as before mentioned, ever eat anything that isn’t grain-based, this is what took place to put that food on your plate.
I would also like to point out that bees will store as much honey as they possibly can…which usually ends up being waaaaay more than they actually can use. To survive a log Iowa winter, my bees need about 100 lbs of honey per hive. Well, last year one hive had TWICE that. (I took 50 pounds, leaving them MORE than enough to get through the winter. I just checked on them today; they’re alive and healthy).
You are NOT hurting them by taking a little honey for yourself, no more than you already are by looking in on them every two or three weeks to make sure they’re healthy.
And again, if you ever eat any fruits or veggies, SOMEONE IS ALREADY KEEPING BEES TO POLLINATE THEM AND INSPECTING THEM TO MAKE SURE THEY’RE HAPPY AND HEALTHY.
KEEPING BEES IS NOT WHAT IS KILLING BEES IT IS WHAT IS SAVING BEES.
WITHOUT BEES YOUR VEGAN DIET IS IMPOSSIBLE.
WITHOUT THAT “EVIL” EXPLOITATION OF BEES YOUR VEGAN DIET IS IMPOSSIBLE.
AGAIN, BEEKEEPING IS WHAT IS SAVING BEES NOT KILLING THEM.
SO IF YOU EAT A LITTLE HONEY IT IS HONESTLY NO WORSE THAN EATING SOME ALMONDS AND FRUIT SALAD.
“Drops mic”
Why can’t bees be protected without taking the honey they produce? I’m all for their protection and I didn’t born yesterday, I know that without bees we all gonna die, but why is it mandatory to steal their honey?
Yeah, that made no sense… You can keep bees without stealing from them. You can keep horses without riding them. You can keep dogs without abusing them. Do people really not get this?
Again, you don’t seem to be getting this.
Yes. You can keep bees without taking honey from them. But, as I said before, you’re ALREADY in the hive checking for diseases and pests. That, if anything, is what causes bees stress, not you taking a frame or two of honey (each frame of honey can hold 15 pounds!).
Also, there’s a REASON you take honey from bees, not just because you want to eat it.
See, like I said before, bees will store as much honey as they can. It’s instinctive. However, there’s only so much room in a hive to put stuff, and honey isn’t the only thing in a hive. They also need room to raise brood, store pollen, ect. Now, if they run out of room, they’ll start feeling overcrowded, which will trigger swarming activity. You can, of course, add more supers (boxes) to the hive, but there’s a limit on how many workers one queen can produce, and you don’t want more supers than they can police, even if all of them are stuffed full of honey. That way lies pests and raiding. So, what we want to do is make sure that they don’t feel overcrowded, while making sure that they don’t have more room than they can take care of.
When bees feel overcrowded, they swarm. When they swarm, they raise a new queen. The old queen and half the bees will then leave to try and find someplace to start a new hive. 90% of swarms die. As a beekeeper, you don’t want this.
You can, of course, purposefully let them start raising a new queen and then split a new hive off of the old one if you want to. I’ve done this myself. But this is not always desirable, for many reasons (no more room for more hives, can’t take care of more, don’t have a spare hive body on hand, ect.) There’s also the fact that a recently swarmed hive is susceptible to raiding by wasps/skunks (skunks LOVE to raid hives, the little bastards) or mice, as half the bees that would have defended it before are now gone. You don’t want this either; raiding can kill a hive as quick as disease or pests. (This is why I keep a VERY close eye on any hives that I’ve recently split, and have taken potshots at skunks in the backyard with a slingshot before. Not to kill them, just to scare them off.)
If you don’t want them to swarm, the easiest way to keep them from feeling cramped and give them a little new breathing room is to pull a few surplus honey frames they’ve filled up and replace them with empty frames. The girls will then happily go back to work filling the new empty frames with honey or brood or whatever they decide needs to go in all that new space. They don’t feel crowded any longer, the hive doesn’t swarm and stays strong, everyone’s happy.
And what, then, am I supposed to do with these three frames of honey I pulled? Throw them away? Hell no. That’s 30-40 pounds of delicious, right there.
Humans and bees have what’s called a symbiotic relationship. We both benefit from the arrangement. Don’t diss things if you don’t understand how they work.
And, one more time…keeping bees is necessary for your vegan diet to remain viable. A beekeeper is going to inspect all of those hives anyway, which is the most stressful part of beekeeping for the bees. You are, with your eating habits, (and by that I mean ‘really just eating’, because there’s NO diet that doesn’t rely on beekeeping) reliant on this practice. Taking a frame or two of honey is the LEAST stressful part of inspecting a hive for the bees.
Source; have kept bees organically for 10 years, help other hobbyists in the area who want to start keeping bees. Garden organically. Generally Actually Know Where My Food Comes From And What It Takes To Get It On My Plate.
I understand some people want to be kind and compassionate. But there’s such a thing as being ignorantly compassionate, to the point where you forget how to do research, apparently.
I live for these defences of honey tbh
and the comments that give insight into beekeeping just make it better ❤
bolding for emphasis:
“Humans and bees have what’s called a symbiotic relationship. We both
benefit from the arrangement. Don’t diss things if you don’t understand
how they work.”
I stand with the beekeepers. I swear they’re doing God’s work.
Love it when people who have never worked with bees in their love try to talk over actual beekeepers who spend dozens of hours investing into tending to their hives👏😩
I have a family friend who worked at our local Salvation Army headquarters as a a secretary. This particular office took all the Christmas donations for children in need, put them in a warehouse, and on a designated day the staff and their friends picked through them all, taking whatever they wanted. She saw people hauling away bikes donated for specific families. Some local children had hundreds of dollars of gifts donated in their name, and on Christmas they received three cheap things, items likely not even from the person who sponsored them.
My friend quit, and I’ve not given them a dime of my money since then.
1. First of all, I am so proud of you for starting up an animal welfare club. I went to a teeny tiny private school with zero clubs except National Honor Society and while I loved my school to bits, I wish I could’ve done FFA and the judging teams and taken animal science classes at my highschool. That is my first suggestion – talk to the animal science teachers and the FFA/ag club advisors, if your school has them. They probably have a lot of resources for you to use and will be willing to advise you and find opportunities for you and the club.
2. It’s great that you’re asking a vet student about this stuff, but I just want to put it out there that I have a background in animal science and want to practice food animal medicine. Many of my classmates in vet school can listen to my professors talking about why we keep food animals the way we do and how farmers don’t abuse their animals, until the profs are blue in the face, but they are still vegetarian because they believe that food animals are abused. The way some vet schools are set up, you don’t even have to learn anything about food animals at all aside from basic anatomy/physiology. So if you want to know something about food animals from a vet/vet student, make sure they have a strong food animal interest (as I do).
3. Now I want to address the concept of factory farming. What is the legal definition of a factory farm? Turns out, all you need is animals that are confined for a portion of the year, and the building you house them has some sort of ventilation system. The acronym CAFO (what most people refer to when they say “factory farming”) stands for ‘concentrated animal feeding operation.’ To be a CAFO, an operation must first be an AFO, or an ‘animal feeding operation.’ An AFO is simply defined as an agricultural operation where animals are confined for at least 45 days in a 12-month period to an area where vegetation is not sustained during the normal growing season. So, by this definition, a backyard chicken coop with a few hens housed inside a structure is technically an AFO. Now, for an AFO to be a small CAFO, the operation needs to confine at least 300 ‘animal units,’ which equates to 300 beef cattle or about 200 mature dairy cows or 750 mature pigs, etc. So, it doesn’t take very many animals to go from being an AFO to a small CAFO!
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that there are 450,000 AFOs in the U.S. and about 15% of these are CAFOs. And, 98-99% of farms in the US are family owned, so even if a majority of these are techically “factory farms” (which as you can tell by now doesn’t mean much and definitely doesn’t mean a huge number of animals) they are not all owned by huge coporations that don’t care about their workers or animals (not that the coporations actually don’t care, it’s just the perception of the public sometimes).
4. Okay, that was a “small” CAFO. What about the larger ones? Are animals cramped into small spaces as the scale gets larger? Actually no! When raising animals in confinement (inside structures or fenced areas where the stocking density does not allow for vegetation to grow on the soil surface), science-based engineering design standards dictate how much space must be allotted for each animal. In terms of the number of animals housed together on larger-scale farms, it is common for swine buildings to house 1,000 to 2,400 animals in a single structure, typically in pens of about 20 animals each. Broiler chicken houses can house up to around 50,000 birds in a single structure. Dairy cattle housed in freestall barns may number up to 1,000 cows in a single barn, while open lot dairy operations (common in arid regions) may contain a few thousand animals on a site. In all of these settings, a farm may contain multiple buildings. With beef cattle, feedlots are typically used for ‘finishing’ the cattle, or growing the animals to market weight. Pens of feedlot cattle typically contain anywhere from 20 to 100 cattle per pen, depending upon the size of the whole feedlot operation. Again, larger feedlots can contain a few hundred to several thousand animals. So just because an operation is very large and has thousands of animals, doesn’t mean that animals are kept in inappropriately sized pens/enclosures.
5. Okay, but what about the health of the animals in these systems?
One important thing to remember is that, as the size of the operation increases, the number of people working on the farm also increases. While it is easy to assume that larger facilities result in less intense management of the animals, this simply is not the case. On the contrary, larger operations usually result in more specialized animal husbandry skills by employees and less of the ‘jack-of-all-trades’ type management scenario typical of smaller operations. Neither model is less acceptable than the other, and each has their unique benefits. Regardless of the size of the operation, confining animals inside a facility or in a feedlot situation has the advantage of allowing the animals’ caretaker(s) to closely monitor animal health and well-being.
There is a misconception (promoted by PETA and the HSUS) that animals housed in buildings have no human interaction and that feed is delivered by ‘pushing a button.’ While it is true that feed is delivered automatically via mechanical conveyance, it is untrue that animal caretakers rarely enter the facilities to monitor the health and well-being of their animals. Animals are monitored by caretakers multiple times per day, ill or at-risk animals are moved to ‘hospital’ pens for up-close monitoring and treatment, and aggressive animals are separated to prevent injury to other animals and the human caregivers. These are all benefits of livestock housing systems or feedlots for cattle and pigs. While free-range or pastured livestock production is certainly an acceptable practice, it does have some disadvantages. One distinct disadvantage of pasture livestock is that animals may be poorly protected from heat, cold, and other inclement weather. Swine, poultry, and dairy animals raised inside structures enjoy a regulated environment free from bitter cold, extreme heat, sunburn, predatory animals, and other hazards – as well as some soil-borne diseases.
Some may argue that disease is more prevalent in confined animal systems than ‘free-range’ or ‘pastured’ systems. A concern with pastured pigs, in particular, is the potential for exposure to parasites and microorganisms that confined pigs are protected from. For instance, the incidence of trichinosis in pigs has seen a significant decline in the past few decades as swine production has moved indoors. However, with the increased popularity of pastured swine production in recent years, sporadic cases of trichinosis have been reported due to these animals being exposed to wild reservoir hosts. Is this a reason to stop producing pigs on pastures? Not necessarily, since proper preparation of pork during cooking is key to preventing human illness from this parasite. But it is clear that each system has its distinct advantages and disadvantages and no single system is perfect.
6. What about those abuse videos? First, it should be known that animal rights groups stageabuse videos. But, even if some of those videos are real, they are the actions of a select few that don’t represent the industry as a whole. Just as providing proper care and nutrition to plants helps them grow and produce to their greatest potential, proper care and nutrition of animals produces the most profitable and highest quality product. Therefore, it is in the best interest of all agricultural producers – livestock or crop, confinement or pasture-based – to provide the highest quality care possible to maximize the productivity and profitability of their operation. Livestock producers quickly disapprove of acts of abuse by other livestock producers; the acts of a select few are not relevant to an entire industry.
7. What about the environmental impact of factory farms? Overall animal agriculture accounts for 2.6-4% of greenhouse gas output (depending on the source you’re reading). Meanwhile, plant ag accounts for 5-6% of greenhouse gas output. So maybe, if we all had a vegetarian/vegan diet, we could reduce GHG by a very small amount, but by that statistic we could double the amount of GHG we remove by going to an all-meat diet. Neither of those are a real possibility. In fact, studies show that a mixed animal protein and plant-based diet is best for the environment, as it utilizes byproducts from plant production to feed into the animal agriculture industry, and the animal ag industry can be located in areas where crop growth isn’t feasible (too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet, too mountainous, etc).
8. Scientific studies impact how we keep animals overall, but especially on CAFO’s. Overall, it’s very important to remember that animals are kept in certain ways because it works. It works because farmers know the importance of keeping their animals happy and healthy in order to maximize profit.
Studies are often performed to see what we can be doing better – for example, are cage free, free range, or pasture-raised eggs healthier for the public and for the chickens? Actually, no. In cage-free systems (still housed indoors, but not in cages), there is more feather plucking, higher mortality rate, and more risk of injury. Chickens are not the most intelligent creatures and will sometimes crush each other to death and won’t always connect to the ground on their leaps, therefore they can break their breastbones. They are not separated from manure, but can take dust baths. They don’t always lay eggs where they are supposed to, so this can create food safety or quality issues due to a higher likelihood of dirty eggs. It also requires three times more labor and there is more dust, thus making conditions for workers less than ideal. In free range systems, the birds have some access to the outdoors. They don’t always choose to use it though; they seem to prefer to stay indoors in a climate-controlled environment. Chickens are not humans. They have different needs, and when they’re outside, they’re more susceptible to disease, predators, and weather elements. There isn’t as much biosecurity here, and mortality rate is even higher, while the eggs may not be as clean or easy to collect. It does appeal to emotion though, and the higher pice tag is warranted for higher bird loss and more expensive heating, cooling, and infrastructure costs. Nearly 1 in 5 chickens in a free range system dies before it ever reaches market. Pasture raised is the same as free range, except that they spend most of their lives outside on grass. This paints a pretty picture to the consumer, but this makes them very susceptible to predation and weather elements. Summer can pose some very serious heat. Tornadoes, rain, hail, insect infestation and other diseases are of concern. And what are they supposed to do in a snow covered sub-zero winter? Chickens on these systems don’t have as much control over their diets and will also eat anything, including particles out of poop! Therefore, an upgrade to standard “caged egg” systems by providing enrichment is the ideal way to go.
Conventionally caged eggs have about 5 hens in a cage to which their basic needs (food, water, climate-controlled shelter) are met. They are on a flooring where their droppings can fall through and used for recycled fertilizer, but eggs are rolled down onto a conveyor system for processing. This is the easiest way to monitor their health, keep their bodies and eggs clean, and prevent feather plucking, all while providing a quality product with the lowest carbon footprint and lowest price. Enrichment caging takes the conventional cage a step further by providing nesting boxes, scratch pads, and perches. The cages are bigger and house between 10 and 100 birds, with 80 to 116 square inches of space per bird. They have a little more room to roam and is the “new” way to cage chickens, supported by animal science experts like Temple Grandin.
Meanwhile, studies are in process to show that piglets castrated with pain relief tend to grow faster and show fewer signs of pain during and after the procedure. Previously it was thought that since an experienced worker can castrate a piglet within seconds, the amount of pain associated was minimal enough that it wouldn’t affect growth, and there are no pain relievers labeled for pigs in the US (making it very difficult for vets to provide pain relief, as there are a LOT of restrictions on extra-label drug use in food animals). Now the AVMA and the CVMA are sitting up and taking notice, to the point where national pork organizations are stiffly regulating their members. In Canada, according to the National Farm Animal Care Council Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Pigs, “as of July 1, 2016 castration and tail-docking, performed at any age, must be done with analgesics to help control post-procedure pain. For castration performed after ten days of age both an anesthetic and an analgesic must be used to help with pain control.”
National veterinary and farmer’s associations recognize the need for a safe and healthy food supply, but also recognize the need to maintain the health and welfare of the animals providing us that food supply. They don’t just turn their noses up when someone presents them with real, credible research that something “we’ve always done” needs to be changed.
9. Finally, if every person who chooses to eat meat, dairy, and eggs would commit to raising their own meat animals, dairy cow(s), and poultry, we could eliminate all CAFOs from the U.S. That’s not realistic. I personally don’t have the time or land to raise a pig, a steer, a dairy cow, and chickens. But I love to eat meat, dairy, and egg products, so I’m thankful that there are people willing to produce more than their fair share of these products so that I have access to the products without having to grow them myself. My personal opinion is that as long as people like me exist, CAFOs will continue to be a valuable component of our food production system worldwide. On top of that, a growing world population that is becoming more affluent, and therefore more able to afford meat animal protein sources, will continue to make large-scale animal production profitable and essential.
So this is just a PSA, y’all should never sign a contract until you read it. I’m talking in rl right now. I just got through reading my employee handbook/service contract and my bosses slipped in a lot of bullshit like telling me I can’t complain about my job on social media, demanding I work off the clock in the name of good service, expects me to show up on time during inclimate weather, and considered disability or religious accommodation a direct threat to the company.
These are all things I took issue with and brought to my employer for further discussion before signing the contract. Most of my coworkers signed without reading, treating it like an internet terms of service contract.
Tl;dr real life is serious shit, lawyers write contracts to protect your employer FROM YOU, read contracts before you sign them – fucking ARGUE about contracts before you sign them
Also important to note, and something my bf has repeated to me many times: a contract is a negotiation until it is signed, and YOU ARE ALLOWED TO AMEND IT. Tech companies often put some bs in there about “we own everything you make while you work for us” which broadly applied also means anything done on your own time. He always ALWAYS does write-in amendments with initial and date to state that they only own things done FOR the company, on company time, because there have been companies that enforced that bullshit when somebody had a personal side project the company decided they wanted to steal. There’s only one company that threw a fit at his attempts to amend it and he considered that a huge red flag and refused to sign, turned down the job.
Never. EVER. Sign shit without reading it. Also: if your prospective employer won’t let you take the thing home to read before you sign it and says you need to sign it then and there THAT IS A RED FLAG. The job I had that turned out to be abusive as shit was like that. Every other job I’ve been able to bring the contract home to my parents to have a more experienced set of eyes on it. It’s also common practice in some fields to have one’s attorney look over it before signing. So never let them tell you that you can’t look over it with someone else. That’s a fat load of shit. For “lower level” jobs they may not accept amendments to the contract but if they won’t even give you the proper time to read it over, they’re trying to pull some bullshit on you and you’re going to regret it if you sign. Even if there’s nothing bad in what you signed it’s an example of how they are going to treat you while you’re there. Take it to heart and run like fucking hell.
Please also tell your coworkers. Inform others. Tell everyone. Please, for the lovee of everything TELL PEOPLE THEY ARE ALLOWED TO DO THESE THINGS.
Companies BANK on the fact you’re not going to read it. Then they slip in shit like ‘you can’t talk about your wages’ because they want you to keep quiet, so thy can pay that guy six bucks, and pay the guy over there fifteen and pay you eight. They want you to accept it all blindly. PLEASE DON’T STAY BLIND.
Yes, I’ve lost out on jobs because I wanted to read it and they didn’t want me to. Or they wanted m to resign and I said no to to the things they added that I pointed out were unfair and borderline illegal.
Read shit. Tell everyone else to read shit. BE INFORMED.
Absolutely 100% good advice ☝🏼☝🏼☝🏼
Never ever ever sign shit without reading and re-reading it! Take it home, show it to someone more experienced, if you can, show it to a lawyer. A contract is supposed to work for both sides. A company in Toronto tried to make me sign a contract with clause that in event of me leaving the job I will not work in a similar position anywhere in Ontario. Yeah, right, not enforceable in court, dudes, you can’t prevent me from making a living. Read the shit and don’t let them intimidate you.
The last thing – with stuff being unenforceable by law – is also important! It’s important not to be overawed by the power of the company or other entity.
Also, some liability disclaimers are paper thin once lawyers become involved.
Hell, Target pulls the ‘we own everything you make‘ bull on seasonal workers. It’s very common.
And companies will sue for breach of contract over it.
This also goes for freelance contracts.
I once had a company slide into their NDA, before we had even discussed compensation, that anything I wrote that was “similar” to what I’d be working on for them belonged to them. It was so broadly worded, that anything I wrote with a contemporary setting would belong to these people…including the web serial I was writing and publishing at the time. Full rights.
I told them I could not sign it as stands and attempted to open negotiations.
I never heard from them again. I strongly feel I dodged a bullet.
Never, ever sign a non-compete clause unless it is extremely narrow. “Don’t take our stuff and sell it” is fine.
“We own everything you make” is not fine.
I also had a temp employer try to do a milder version, which was “Anything you write during your commute.” Uh, right. You going to pay me for my commute time then. I refused to sign and did not get the job.
Unless you are literally at the “Can’t pay my rent/food bill” point? It is better not to get the job or gig than to be locked into an aggressive non-compete.
With the legally-required disclaimer that I’m not a lawyer, watch for these in publication contracts and NDAs:
Overly broad non-competes. “Please don’t self publish a book the same month we’re releasing your book” is fine and only good manners. “You aren’t allowed to self publish for the life of this contract” is a red flag.
On the same note, overly broad first refusal clauses. Don’t sign with a publisher who insists that they have to have first refusal on every single book you write for the length of the contract. Often they will sit on your books for months, even if they don’t publish that genre. However, it is always polite to give first refusal on sequels and other books set in the same world.
Life of copyright clauses. For the love of little puppies and kittens: Never. Sign. A. Life. Of. Copyright. Contract. (Work for hire is obviously a different situation. I’m talking for original work here). Contracts should have a specified term in years, after which your rights automatically revert if you don’t renegotiate. Automatically. You shouldn’t have to request them.
Signing over rights the publisher doesn’t intend to exercise. Don’t sign over audio rights unless the publisher has a solid record of producing audio books (if they do have a solid record of it then do give them audio rights and make them pay the production costs). Don’t sign over movie rights to a book publisher! Yes, I have seen this. The publisher was Curiosity Quill. They have since imploded. If a publisher is e-only ask about splitting off the print rights.
For work for hire contracts, then you are signing over all the rights in the contract. (Editing contracts are always work for hire). An NDA is standard and don’t be afraid to sign one even if they’re scary, just make sure they don’t hide anything nasty in it. A standard NDA should boil down to “Please don’t share the files with anyone and please don’t talk about the project publicly without our permission.” I personally treat every project as under an NDA even if I haven’t signed one…you’ll see me talk occasionally about “This project I can’t talk about is taking up my time.” That means I’m either under an NDA or I should be if the publisher had any sense.
The “opposite” of an NDA is a required publicity clause. Be careful of these: Make sure you aren’t responsible for the results. Usually they aren’t too onerous, though. It’s more like “Would you please share the kickstarter with all of your Facebook friends.” I also had one which required me to post the release of the anthology to my blog. Usually they’re no big deal, but watch out for pressure being put on you to do a ton of marketing on a small thing like a short story. It can take you away from marketing stuff which really needs it.
Tl;dr:
Don’t sign broad non-competes. Ever. Under any circumstances.
Don’t sign away the rights to something a company can’t use/exercise.
Don’t be afraid to negotiate.
Don’t be afraid to walk away (unless, again, you would end up on the street/without health insurance/etc).
Make sure you double check the numbers. My pay is standardized by the federal government, and every year I get a cost of living adjustment, in addition to a small raise. In my latest contract, the university used old numbers, stiffing me what would have been about 2K over the year. Don’t sign contracts you haven’t read.
No offense but this is like saying “if lgbt gays exist, cishet gays exist”. It’s just dumb
my post means when inclus say that aces can be l g b or t while being ace then that means there are aces who are cishet
Aces can be homoromantic, biromantic, panromantic and heteroromantic. However, they can not be heterosexual, something that is required to call them “cishet”
heteroromantic. het. and cis. cishet. read what ur saying.
Cishet means you are cisgender, heteroromantic and heterosexual. People who are cisgender, heteroromantic and asexual are not cishet, they are LGBT. Because ace people are LGBT and you can’t be cishet and LGBT at the same time
is ace lesbian? is ace gay? is ace bi(/pan)? is ace trans? asexuality is about sex. its closer to a kink.
You should probably google the definition of asexual again
gladly! its on my side! asexuality is about sex!
here is a screenshot, dearie!
“or low or absent interest in desire for sexual activity.” “alongside heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality.”
wig!!
Lack of sexual attraction. Learn to read. If you think asexuality is only about sex, you probably also think every sexual orientation is only about sex. Is homosexuality a kink? Don’t think so.
nope! that homophobia babey! lgb are not solely about sex, like asexuality is. lgb are about who people are interested in. romantically and sexually. asexuality is about how aces have sex—no sex.
So saying homosexuality is only about sex is homophobic but saying asexuality is only about sex is right? That doesn’t make a lot of sense. Asexual people can have sex, it has nothing to do with that. Maybe you shouldn’t argue about something if you don’t even know the definition.
Asexuality is about who you’re sexually attracted to – nobody – just like homosexuality, bisexuality, etc are. The bit about low or no interest in sex is a leftover from old misconceptions that overlapped hyposexuality (low or no interest in sex, low or no libido) and celibacy with asexuality. While some asexual people are sex repulsed or disinterested in sex, others aren’t so – but it makes sense for an asexual person to have low or no interest in sex, just like it makes sense for a gay guy to have no interest in sex with women… because he’s not sexually attracted to them.
You, and the old conflating of asexuality and hyposexuality, are getting cause and effect the wrong way around. The very first line of the definition says “lack of sexual attraction to others”. Asexuality isn’t a kink – even if it were what you think it is, that’s not a kink, it’s not a kink to not like missionary position, or to not like oral, or to not like things… kinks are things you like in the bedroom, not things you don’t do or who you’re attracted to.
If someone was heterosexual and biromantic, would you call them a cishet? Wouldn’t them being biromantic make them LGBT+? Just replace biromantic with aromantic – part of their identity isn’t hetero. Because being ace or aro means that you’re not heterosexual AND heteroromantic, you’re not “cishet” if you’re ace or aro.
~ Vape
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, the “It may be considered a lack of sexual orientation, or one of the variations thereof, alongside heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality.” means that it may be considered to be that an asexual person lacks a sexual orientation altogether (a relatively unpopular stance), or that asexuality is a sexual orientation in its own right like the others are – the “alongside” is like saying “tomato is a fruit, alongside bananas, apples, oranges…” They’re not saying that it exists alongside one of those in an individual, as implied by the deceptive selecting of quotes from entirely different sentences that the person above did.
~ Vape
The article literally doesn’t say anything about how Ace people have sex… It says, first line, lack of sexual attraction.
Like how the fuck do y’all jump through so many hoops to exclude Ace people that could also easily apply to homosexual and bisexual people???
“Asexuality is about how ace people have sex, which is none.”
Homosexuality is about how gay people have sex… with is with people of the same sex.
Bisexuality is about how bisexual people have sex… which is with the same or opposite sex.
Literally, every single sexuality in existence can be about how someone has sex.
The fucking definition they cite even says asexuality is on par with heterosexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality and they just want to focus on that one half of a sentence in the middle that says it sometimes also is used to refer to people who don’t want to have sex.
And like, literally every sexuality is just about sex. It’s literally what kind of human you can potentially be interested in having sex with. It’s about sex, that’s why the word sex is literally in the word sexuality. Stop with the puritan nonsense acting like sex is nasty and bad and gay people just want to hang out and never have sex.
i don’t understand millenials who say they eat out so often because they don’t have time to cook. because like…. cooking doesn’t have to take that long?
throw some pasta on to boil, chop some tomatoes and onions to saute in the pan with a bit of seasoning– boom, hot dinner in ten minutes.
put some leftover rice in a pan with soy sauce, whatever vegetables you have on hand, and an egg. fried rice in fifteen.
heck you can do loads with browning ground meat: tacos, meat sauce, meat pie, chili, all of which take maybe 10-20min to make.
if you don’t have time to cook meat (which only takes maybe ten minutes anyways, depending on the type), buy one of those whole rotisserie chickens from the store for like $5. you can get several meals worth out of that by adding it to other recipes (shredded chicken tacos, soup, throw it in the fried rice, etc)
like you don’t have to be super experienced at cooking to make your own food and make it quickly. dinner doesn’t need to take an hour to cook every night. all you need is a quick 30m grocery trip weekly or even biweekly for staples, and a few basic seasonings (salt, pepper, chili powder, etc).
i’m sorry but i just don’t understand when so many young people complain about being broke but then eat out for half their meals. 90% of the time it’s not because you “don’t have time”, it’s because you’re convinced you can’t and won’t even try
It’s more so that we literally don’t have the money and less we don’t have time. In our case, the cost of living is what’s preventing us from grocery shopping. All of our money goes to rent, bills and gas. Food is kind of an afterthought at this point.
Except that’s a lie, I gave my mother 50 bucks for my end of groceries, and then she proceeded to feed a family of 4 for almost 2 months with just that, so stop lying to yourselves, get off your asses and go shopping and buy off brand or in bulk
$50 bucks goes to gas so I can work to keep a roof over my head. Shut the fuck up acting high and mighty because my situation doesn’t fit yours.
50 bucks for gas a month? What kinda car you drive? And if it’s an older car that’s quite good, still though, my situation has fit dirt poor, if you stop eating out and instead shop for the cheapest grocery items you can make it by much easier trust me, my family has been so poor I had to wear Jean’s from when I was 10 when I turned 15, yet my family still ate at night when my mom shopped smart. It may not be what you want to eat but rice and hamburger meat will fill you up really well, or even just rice and vegetables, or just rice, quite acting like you have an excuse just because your poor
$50 last two weeks at most because of work commute. As in I only drive when I absolutely need to to save on gas money and I still fill up twice a month. I gave up on eating every few days if it means I can afford rent while taking in what food I can get.
Stop acting like everyone’s situation fits yours because you don’t know the area I live, the financial situation we’re in, and you damn well don’t fucking understand that cost of living here doesn’t always include the price of grocery shopping.
Good for you that your mom shopped smart to support your family. Good for you that she passed that on to you and you have that knowledge. Good for you that you have that experience and still find a way to shit on people who are trying their best to get by and act like you’re doing them a favor by telling them to “stop being lazy”.
First you’ve never stated where you live, only that you cant seem to afford groceries so you cant attack anyone on that point, second, I’m not saying your situation fits mine, all in saying is that you can pull it off, saying you cant and making excuses as to why you cant arent helping, but I’ll admit that alot of places in America have a huge cost of living, you got me there, but there are other people in a situation that does fit yours or is much worse, but still shop, also look out for sales, last bit af advice for you since you dont want it
Where I live doesn’t matter. Your assumption that what worked out for your situation can apply to mine is what set me off. I’m not making comparisons about who’s situation is worse. I know there’s people who are worse off than I am, but you don’t see me acting like a dick and calling them lazy.
I’m not calling you lazy, not you specifically at least (if I did my bad) but I’m just saying get off your ass and to the grocery stores and get better spending habits
Oh I see.
The way I’m budgeting is my problem. The not having money for food because everything else eats my paycheck isnt the problem, but my spending is.
Did you even read what the fuck you typed before you hit post?
Sometimes but not always, but hey you keep being mad when I was trying to calm both us down to have a more civil discussion, I started it but I was trying to right it, so you keep being mad I said dont eat like shit and I’ll go the other way
^ Imagine thinking that acting condescending is a good way to calm someone down
>no money to purchase food after primary bills paid
>“get off your ass and go grocery shopping”
Oh my god, has no one heard of food stamps. Like, theyre very easy to get.
I applied for food stamps twice in the past year. Got denied both times.
Do tell me how easy they are to get.
You dont need to be rude
You didn’t have to assume that food stamps are as easily obtainable as you claim.
Where was I rude?
You just seem overly defensive
Why? Because I replied to your flase claim?
Imagine actually saying “I’m not calling you lazy, but I’m just saying get off your ass” in the same sentence and not realizing how much of an asshole you’re being holy shit
And like.. it’s like these people didn’t see that post about how poor people can’t afford to buy in bulk. Yeah, if you have the money, time, and energy to go to the grocery store and make sure you’re getting the best deal for your money.. it’s cheaper per person to buy good at the grocery store and then use it. But.. when you barely have the money to pay your bills, you don’t have the time or money to go to the grocery store to get that kind of deal.
Plus like.. cooking in any real capacity is harder than you seem to give it credit for. Most of the time I don’t even have the motivation to cook a pot of noodles. A lot of the time I don’t even feel like microwaving my food. Or I’ve waited too long to eat and now my low blood sugar or whatever is making it even harder for me to get food. And the kind of food that you can just take out of the fridge or cupboard and eat is not that easy to come by. And it’s not really possible for everyone to get the resources together to cook a lot for leftovers for whatever timeframe.
Like.. I’m sure for some people it’s a refusal to learn inexpensive ways to cook (healthy) food, but for other people.. it’s not always a choice they have the option to make.
Plus, money aside, there are people who can’t prepare a meal easily for whatever reason, such as energy level or pain.
It’s kinda.. no completely.. ignorant to assume going to the grocery store and cooking is just a matter of getting up off your ass for everyone. It’s not.
According to researchers, coordinated critics have mounted a “misinformation campaign designed to purposefully fabricate doubt regarding the harmful impacts of outdoor cats and stymie policies that would remove outdoor cats from the landscape.”
The conflict stems from a groundbreaking study published in 2013 by scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That study evaluated the combined impact of the tens of millions of outdoor cats in the United States. The authors found that roaming outdoor cats kill approximately 2.4 billion birds every year and are the leading source of direct, human-caused mortality to birds in the country. Similar results have since been confirmed in Canada and Australia.
To those of you still in denial about how bad outdoor cats are to wildlife not just in your own countries but globally here’s the cold hard scientific facts stating that you are apart of a movement of uneducated critics spreading misinformation.
Here’s the link to the open-source scientific artificial as well:
Cats live longer, happier, healthier lives indoors.
Longer and healthier, yes. Happier, I’m honestly not so sure about. Both my rescue and my born-as-indoor-cat love fresh air and would leave the house if they could. Especially when they see birds, but even if I just open a window for some fresh air, they’ll try to get out. I always feel like I’m denying them something they need or desperately want. They have plenty of indoor space and toys (even feathered ones that simulate flight). I’m not sure they’re happier inside but it’s the only way I can guarantee their safety given that I live in a city apartment.
Catios and supervised outdoor time on a porch or on a leash can be good forms of enrichment for cats. But I don’t think cats are happier if they are left in unsafe situations for extended periods of time. Cats are animals, and while some of them may have an impulse to chase birds outside, thar doesn’t mean that being a free roaming outdoor cat is actually good for them.
TRY TAKING YOUR CAT ON A WALK WITH A HARNESS
It’s something that cats (just like dogs) can be trained to do. And something that some cats (just like some dogs) never really take to, while others really do.
And if your cat doesnt like it, or you can’t be bothered to train them with one, then you find other forms of enrichment. Not free roaming.
Now I’ve wondered why it can’t be made law just that all cats should wear collars with bells- I’m guessing it just wouldn’t help, but feels like it should… that way cats can still roam about as they like but won’t be anywhere near such a threat to wildlife.
This is so fucking ridiculous. My cat is almost 15, hes not an accident prone toddler and he’s not a dog, I’m not walking him on a leash unless we go somewhere unfamiliar and I need to take him with me. He’s always been an outdoor cat ever since he was 8 months old and we’ve never had a problem. His mother Poppy didn’t have a problem and his sister Holly didn’t have a problem and neither did the rest of his siblings. He just goes outside and then drums on the back door to ask to get back in, its not that complicated and he usually comes back before a certain time, especially when it’s colder, he’s a very mild and predictable cat, he’s not a rabid animal. Most of the time he just wants to sit on the shed roof and people watch over the fence. Now when I say outdoor cat I mean he goes outside in the garden to chase birds, sunbathe, climb trees and go to the bathroom. He also has a litter tray if he doesn’t want to go outside if its raining or if its too cold or snowy. He doesn’t need to be supervised, he’s fine on his own and can spend hours at a time just lying on the decking, I don’t have enough hours in the day to just sit and watch him, just leave him alone, he wants personal time. But a house is suffocating for a cat, especially in summer where in the UK the temperature in a house is unbearable because we don’t have proper ventilation or air conditioning (because we’ve never really needed it before). He wants to run around and sit up in trees, not so much in winter anymore because he’s getting older, but he still wants to have fun and not wander around the same rooms all of the time.
Theres is a HUGE difference between farm cats and domesticated outdoor cats. My cat is vaccinated, he is neutered and gets a flea, mite and worm treatment every 3 months at the vet and an all round vet check up once a year as well as having pet insurance. My cat has never gotten sick, ever. The only time he has actually been injured was when we insisted he wear a collar with a bell, which really irritated him, and he got caught on a fence and was stuck there meowing for help, it was a good thing he was in a back garden and not trapped in a shed or in a field. After that he just got a tracking chip in him instead, I’m glad I’ve never had to use it. He’s never been injured after we took it off and he’s certainly never been hit by a car or attacked by wildlife. Cats are not idiots, they don’t go near moving cars, they don’t go near foxes because they want to live. Keeping a cat indoors all day is almost cruel, especially if you live somewhere like me where there’s literal mountains and forests at your doorstep and plenty of fresh air and friendly neighbours. Literally everyone I know lets their cat outside, like why are Americans so fucking dramatic? Just let your cat go for a piss about in the garden, it literally does no harm. My neighbours let maine coons the size of small children outside and they’re the most tame cats ever, they just roam about and lie on your decking to sunbathe, I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard them fight or kill other animals.
It’s like you didnt read the article at all. But thanks for proving the point.
Science denialism is a bad look.
I did read the article, assuming things is a bad look you know. What is also a bad look is Americans going. Look! Look at this article only relevant to Americans and people who live in America every one must now follow this, everyone on Earth who has a cat hecause the whole world is America. What is with Americans and they think the entire world revolves around them and everything relevant in their country is relevant everywhere else? There are other places in the world, did you know the Earth is round? I think its just a given that you generally do not let your pets out near dangerous wildlife, like in Australia where nature is angry and is out to get you. Here you don’t even need screen doors because the most annoying insect we have is a wasp. That article is one article and is also an article which is not reputable. An article is not a reputable scientific source unless whoever is presenting it is unbiased, the American Bird Conservatory isn’t. They are biased, and also American, meaning the United States so they only represent ONE study that was done in half a continent of the entire world and the study conviently aligns with what they believe. A country that has a very big problem with stray cats. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a stray or sick cat outside, ever, because people neuter their cats here and get them vaccinated. Its not a scientific journal, its not peer reviewed and is very clearly biased. No shit I’m not going to listen to it. Sure science denialism does make you look like an idiot, but also being a cheeky wanker who doesn’t know what makes a source reputable also makes you look like a massive idiot.
First of all, YOU’RE assumptions about your cat does or doesnt do when you can’t observe them doesn’t negate scientific research.
And to assume that stray cats and free roaming house cats are only a problem in the US is pure ignorance.
Like, where on Earth do you think letting cats free roam is ok?
Cats are domesticated animals. There’s no inner jaguar, yearning for freedom and The Hunt. They have an intelligence that suits cohabitation with humans, and situations outside of that are more stressful than eating and playing at home, safely. (Overall, in general, of course.)
The science is there to back it up. Cats are not only in danger when let outside on their own, but they become a danger to the environment. There have been certain times in certain places where it was actually required of people to kill strays on sight if possible, because the cats were destroying the local ecosystem.
Peoples’ feelings on the matter shouldn’t matter. This is the spanking debate all over again.
Although I agree with this research watching everyone argue the polarities is just non-sensible. Cats are a strain on local ecosystems, that is pretty evident. But please, refrain from comparing cats and dogs, they are nothing akin.
Cats are carnivorous animals, and it is impossible to fully domesticate a carnivore as is the case with cats. Yes they do have an innate, inner need to hunt. That’s why they will do it every opportunity they get and why ALL of their toys are associated with hunting. They aren’t just cute stuffed animals, they have sound, movement, etc. You’re house burns down, your cat has a better chance of survival then you do. You die, you cat will find food in the house (contrary to popular belief dogs are substantially more likely to eat you then cats). They are resourceful, they are NOT domesticated. Cats require a certain amount of independence, to strip that from them is cruel. They can be perfectly happy indoors, some cats are and other cats have a non stop desire to be outdoors.
Animal husbandry has caused a
symbiotic relationship between humans and dogs, this is what we refer to as domestication. Dogs would have a very challenging time surviving if it wasn’t from human.
Taking a cat out on a lead walk would just be cruel. You are taking your cat outside to show them all the great things they would naturally love to do and taking it away.
I have three cats myself, have volunteered at the RSPCA, and worked with many other cats in my life. I don’t think the answer is so cut. Since I’ve read this I have tried to find ways to keep my cats healthy and happy. My two cats who love outdoors can come in the backyard with me in the summer, I have seen my neighbor walking his cats without a lead which would be great if you can teach your cats that. I also go to the pet shop every once and a while and grab a handful of crickets, my cats go APE for that stuff. Some cats may be happy on a leash but I tried with mine since they were kittens and you are lucky if they permit you to drag them.
And lets your cats be the predators of your house instead of using traps. I live by a creek so every fall I get mice. When cats are cruel toying with mice, they are also giving off a pheromone that warns the rest of the mice that there is a cat in the house. This, til this day, is one of the most effective methods of vermin control.
Nothing you said is true in the slightest. You’re purposely spreading misinformation under the guise that you think you know what you’re talking about.
Since we’re talking about relevant experience in animals, here’s mine:
four years working at two city council animal shelters
a bachelor degree in zoology
four years experience in science
currently doing my Masters degree
Internship at scientific environmental research center
four years of volunteer and research work from native wildlife to insects to pets.
I think I win huh? So I think I’m going to know a lot more about cats or any animal really then you.
First – cats are domesticated. The fact you think carnivores can’t be domesticated is
idiocy
at it’s finest. The dog is considered a facultative carnivore (although some would consider them omnivores but I’d disagree) and cats are obligate carnivores. Both are carnivores we have domesticated.
Cats are 100% domesticated, hence why they, Felis catus are called ‘domestic cats’. So scientists, vets and animal experts say cats are domesticated.
Thirdly – using a leash to walk your cat is not “cruel” the fact you think that just shows you have little understanding (again) on what that word means. Cat leashes are approved by vets and are a great, safe way to allow your cat to go outside without the risk of them killing native wildlife, hurting humans, hurting other pets, getting killed by cars or humans or animals, preventing them from reproducing, eating poisons, contracting or spreading zoonotic diseases, just to name a few.
-say the way an animal was raised doesn’t matter if they later die, regardless of how they die
-want domesticated species to go extinct
-think domesticated or tamed animals should be released into the wild
-oppose zoos and their conservation programs, regardless of the treatment of their animals
-force your carvinorous pets to be vegan or support others who do
-support PETA, who routinely kill healthy, adoptable animals
then don’t say you love animals!
Some of these arguments are so inherently flawed.
½) Obviously, it’s better for animals to be treated better before they’re eventually murdered. But the fact remains: they’re killed for no reason. If I kept you against your will for a few months after your birth then killed you, is it really all that better for you if I treated you well before I murdered you? No! The fact is that killing these animals for a completely selfish reason is inherently immoral in itself.
3) The vast majority of “domesticated species” like cows, pigs, and chickens were bred to be killed as early as possible. Even if they’re not slaughtered at a young age, the majority of their short lives will be riddled with health problems. I’ve known rescued chickens so far they couldn’t stand up—that’s not their fault, it’s the way they were bred. The bottom line is that they won’t ever live happy lives the way we’ve bred them. Why on earth would you want to keep breeding these poor animals so that they can continue to suffer?
5) Zoos suck. Setting aside their treatment of animals and the fact that they imprison non-endangered animals against their will just to make a buck (which is inherently immoral), their conservation programs just don’t work. Only 18% of the animals in zoos are endangered, and according to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, less than 1% of all of the average zoo’s profits are spend on conservation. Even if the pitiful amount of money zoos are spending on conservation went towards something other than a captive breeding program to fill their exhibits, the fact is that many other reputable organizations exist that do the same work, only better. If you care about endangered species, don’t support zoos. Check out awesome organizations that are actually making a difference, like the World Wildlife Fund and the Sea Shepard Conservationist Society.
6) I guarantee you that practically no one does this. I’ve worked at a veterinarian’s office as a tech for the past few years, and I have never once seen a naturally carnivorous or omnivorous animal forced into veganism.
7) To be clear, PETA as an organization isn’t my favorite. But the fact is that condemning them for humanely euthanizing healthy, adoptable animals is short-sighted and hypocritical. I guarantee you that your local shelters euthanize healthy, adoptable animals every day, and big, national, widely-respected organizations like the Humane Society do too. I don’t like it, no one does. But more animals are bred and surrendered than there are people willing to adopt them, and there’s not enough money to keep all these animals alive and healthy. So we as the human stewards of these animals have a choice to make: we either humanely euthanize them, or we let them starve to death in overcrowded shelters. This problem won’t be fixed until people stop breeding animals–if your animal was purchased from a pet store or a breeder, you’re part of the problem. You are the reason so many
healthy, adoptable animals have to be euthanized. Adopt, don’t shop.
TL; DR: Regardless of how they’re treated, killing animals when it’s not strictly necessary is immoral. “Domesticated” species were bred to produce as much meat as possible in as little time possible, so they have so many health defects that it’s just awful to keep breeding them into existence so they can continue to suffer. Zoos spend less than 1% of their profits on conservation, and it doesn’t even work, while many other orgs do the same work better. Practically no one forces their pets to be vegan. The euthanization of
healthy, adoptable animals is an unfortunate necessity, as their isn’t enough money to keep these animals alive, so we choose between humanely euthanizing them or letting them starve to death.
“For no reason” 🙄
@theoreticallystillhere as promised, here’s the full breakdown. I look forward to your response! 🙂
“Obviously, it’s better for
animals to be treated better before they’re eventually murdered [but] is it
really all that better for you if I treated you well before I murdered you?
No!”
You’re contradicting yourself in this paragraph. I’ll assume the conclusion
better reflects your views than the introduction (i.e., you believe it doesn’t
matter how much an animal is tortured if it’s eventually killed), I just felt
like pointing that out before continuing.
“they’re killed for no
reason”
Animals are killed for human food, pet food, population control, pest
control, scientific experiments, and ‘for their own good’ (i.e., euthanasia),
among other things. Those are reasons. They might not be good reasons in your
opinion, but they are reasons nonetheless, and I’m sure you know that already.
So instead of just quitting at ‘no reason’, it would make more sense to argue
against these reasons.
“If I kept you against your
will for a few months after your birth then killed you, is it really all that
better for you if I treated you well before I murdered you? No!”
Yes, I would argue. I’ve got a pretty utilitarian world-view, so yes,
there absolutely is a difference between being tortured 24/7 for years vs being
pampered every second of your life before eventually being killed in my
opinion. I can see how the difference wouldn’t matter if you’re arguing from a
consequentialist philosophy, but if you do that, you’d also have to argue that
there’s no reason to, for example, differentiate between manslaughter and
murder in the law. In other words, following the logic you’ve set up here, it
doesn’t matter if I meticulously planned out the murder of my father and went
through with it, or if I dropped something on his head and killed him by
accident; I’d deserve the same punishment no matter what. Do you see the
problem with applying this philosophy to real life?
“The fact is that killing
these animals for a completely selfish reason is inherently immoral in
itself.”
Why? You have to argue for why. I won’t assume anything about your
personal moral philosophy here, so please explain it to me. Why is killing an
animal wrong? Do ticks and mosquitoes count as animals? How about bacteria? Why
does this only go for certain members of the kingdom Animalia and not Plantae
or Protista or Fungi, etc.? Is the killing of a cow worse than a dog? How about
a tuna vs. a dolphin? I don’t believe any living creature wants to die, so why
is it okay to kill some and not others?
“The vast majority of
“domesticated species” like cows, pigs, and chickens were bred to be killed as
early as possible. Even if they’re not slaughtered at a young age, the majority
of their short lives will be riddled with health problems. I’ve known rescued
chickens so far [do you mean fat?] they couldn’t stand up—that’s not their
fault, it’s the way they were bred.”
Citation needed. With tens and tens and tens of animals, from silk worms
and camels to horses and dogs, having been domesticated, and a lot of these
species having been bred into different breeds with different purposes, you
cannot say ‘the vast majority’ so casually. Even if we only look at Western
commercial breeds, which I assume is what you mean, this still isn’t accurate.
Broiler chickens will not grow until they die – as witnessed by their continued
breeding – unless they’re fed ad libitum (like on meat farms). Like labrador
retrievers, they’re constantly hungry and bred to put on weight very easily,
but it’s not something that can’t be controlled with a well-planned diet.[1]
If you let a labrador eat as much as it wanted, it would get crippling arthritis
and elbow dysplasia and lose its ability to walk too. While physical health in
relation to their weight isn’t a problem if broiler breeds are kept right,
their hunger is a welfare issue, and – pardon my pettiness but – guess what?
Agriculture/animal science/veterinary students and scientists are working on fixing this issue.[2]
[4] Animal rights activists
are doing nothing to help these chickens, except for ‘rescuing them’ and
feeding them to death, like in your anecdote, and dreaming about a fantasy
world where production chickens don’t exist.
ID: a picture of a broiler breeder farm, showing the chickens in their living quarters. Their bedding/scratching area, nest boxes, and feeding/watering area are marked. All the chickens are clean, healthy, and walking around despite being broiler chickens. .
I can’t speak for other countries but when it comes to pigs, in Denmark
we use a DanBred Duroc/Danish landrace/Yorkshire mix that has specifically been
bred for good leg conformation and have no more health problems than ‘pet’
breeds.[5] Where are you getting the
idea that pigs get sick just from living?
I have no comment on the issue of cow health in relation to their breed,
as there are no problems with regular industrial breeds. I have anecdotal evidence
that Holstein Friesians live generally shorter lives than Jerseys, just like a
Great Dane has a shorter life than a Shiba Inu. A few dairy breeds more
frequently get hoof problems than others (again, Holstein vs Jersey).[6] Purebred Belgian Blue
cattle have very difficult calvings, but they aren’t being bred pure outside of
Belgium, and BB-mixes actually have easier calvings than purebred Holsteins and
Simmentals.[7]
That’s about all the breed-related health issues I can think of.
Also, why did you put ‘domesticated species’ in quotation marks?
Domestication is a real thing that happens. It’s not a buzzword. It’s an actual
evolutionary process. Here are some articles about it to get you started: [8][9][10]
“Zoos suck [with regards to] their treatment of animals …”
AZA-accredited zoos aren’t roadside zoos. Unless you’ve never been to an
accredited zoo, I don’t see how you could have a problem with their treatment
of animals. It’s certainly better than what even the best sanctuaries so far
have been able to give them. I’ll let the pictures of enclosures speak for
themselves, but here are AZA’s restrictions on habitats and enrichment.[11] Remember that sanctuaries
are not subject to these restrictions and often keep their animals in small
chain link cages because that’s all they can afford.
ID: Elephants frolicking in an artificial pond, surrounded by luch grass
and trees. There’s a lot of space for them to roam and to get away from the
eyes of human visitors. Exhibit at Sedgwick County Zoo. [source].
ID: A pond habitat so large you can barely spot the animals. A
freshwater crocodile is lying in the water and a tortoise is walking on the
shore. Exhibit at the San Diego Zoo. [source].
ID: Map/floor plan of the orangutan exhibit at the Indianapolis Zoo,
showing the large indoor area, the smaller green outdoor area, and the huge
‘Hutan Trail’ outdoor climbing facilities. [source].
ID: An outdoor aviary featuring turkey vultures, Japanese golden eagles,
Steller’s sea eagles, bateleurs, and white-tailed sea eagles, all with enough
room for both flight and privacy. Exhibit at the Tama Zoo. [source].
Exhibits like this are standard at AZA zoos. Meanwhile sanctuary
exhibits tend to look like this:
ID: Three tigers walking together behind a chain link fence. Their
enclosure is grass-covered, but several areas have been walked bare. In the
background, a shed and various climbing enrichment can be seen. Exhibit at the
Catty Shack Ranch Wildlife Sanctuary. [source].
ID: A capuchin monkey in an enclosure of the bare minimum size, with welded wire
mesh fencing. Its enrichment consists of branches for climbing, a baby swing,
and dog toys, among other similar things. Exhibit at the Forever Wild Exotic
Animal Sanctuary. [source].
ID: Ropes, netting, old blankets, and teddy bears strung up under a
roof. Several bats are roosting around the blanket. The walls are stained by
guano, but there’s enough space for flight. Exhibit at Atalef Bat Sanctuary. [source].
The enclosures at these sanctuaries are not bad enclosures and I am sure the animals are satisfied with
them! What I’m saying is not that these sanctuaries are bad, but rather that if an accredited zoo kept animals like this, people would riot.
“Zoos suck [with regards to] the fact that they imprison
non-endangered animals against their will
just to make a buck (which is inherently immoral) …”
What’s inherently wrong with imprisoning non-endangered animals? Are you
against people keeping pets as well? Having a dog is literally imprisoning a
non-endangered animal. You can’t argue that a dog is a willing prisoner, while
a zebra is not unless you have some serious ethological sources on hand re:
animals’ desires. Likewise, you need some sound moral philosophy to argue that
keeping an animal for profit is more immoral than simply keeping an animal. I’d
appreciate that you keep in mind how being kept for profit supposedly makes the
animal’s life inherently worse, and keep in mind that any profits are very
likely to go directly to the animal’s own upkeep and to improvements on its
quality of life (i.e. big zoos can afford huge enclosures with plenty of
enrichment, 24/7 vet care, and scientists on their staff to make sure their
care is species appropriate, while sanctuaries usually cannot).
“[Zoos’] conservation
programs just don’t work. Only 18% of the animals in zoos are endangered, and
according to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, less than 1% of all of the
average zoo’s profits are spend [sic] on conservation.”
Not all conservation programs are ex situ. In other words, zoos can, and
do, participate in conservation programs without having endangered species in
their collection, via in situ work.[12] There have been plenty of
successful breeding programs in captivity. Why do you think Père David’s deer
and Simandoa cave roaches still exist? Why do you think there’s a stable
population of natterjack toads in Refsvindinge, Denmark? Why do you think giant
pandas were recently upgraded from Endangered to Vulnerable? It’s all the work
of captive breeding by zoos, scientists, ranchers, and amateur hobbyists.
And where do you think the proceeds from ticket sales, donations,
grants, and so on end up? If you look at the budget of any accredited zoo or aquarium
(usually listed somewhere on their website), you’ll see that they spend the
vast majority of their money directly on their staff and animals. There’s very
little profit in running even a popular zoo, and the administration can assure
you that said profit goes directly to renovating exhibits and the like. It
doesn’t get pocketed by a CEO. It all returns to the zoo. As an example, here’s
Copenhagen Zoo’s latest report (2017):
As you can see, their total, after all income, expenses, taxes, and
interests had been calculated was… 2,2 million DKK. That’s roughly 337k USD.
That’s not at all a large profit. I was at a lecture with one of their hired
zoologists (Mikkel Stelvig, his name is listed on their website, so I feel
comfortable sharing it) a couple of months ago and actually asked him about
this because I feel like it’s necessary information. He told us that any profit
like that goes directly to improving exhibits. I imploreyou to look at
various zoos’ budgets and email them if you have any questions, instead of just
assuming zoos are glorified circuses with a greedy ringleader at the top.
Additionally, research is indispensable with regards to conservation,
and all AZA zoos are constantly contributing to research projects. At
Copenhagen Zoo (the one I’m most familiar with) alone, they finished 5 projects
last year, are currently helping with at least 4 PhD’s and 5 theses, and are
working on 9 other research projects. Considering many projects can take
several years, that’s a hell of a commitment. And yes, these projects are a
huge help in conservation, covering anything from muskox movement patterns in
North-East Greenland to the ecological role of macaques in Baluran National
Park.
Lastly, a lot of zoos work closely together with various conservation
groups and help them raise funds. Brevard Zoo raises funds for the Little
Fireface Project. The Racine Zoo supports the Sea Turtle Conservancy. Copenhagen
Zoo supports Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary. Most zoos have one or more
partnerships like that.
The role of zoos in conservation work is absolutely vital.
“If you care about
endangered species, don’t support zoos. Check out awesome organizations that
are actually making a difference, like the World Wildlife Fund and the Sea
Shepard Conservationist Society.”
Ah yes, the WWF, an awesome organization with a CEO richer than any zoo
worker, and at one time with a higher salary than the US president,[13] that spends 11% (may not
sound like a lot, but for such a huge organization it stacks up to 37.0 million
USD) of its budget on fundraising (read: ads) and more than 101 million USD on
public education, much of which also just consists of advertisements,[14][15] it only really cares about
charismatic mega-fauna, and has never owned up to its multiple human rights
violations[16][17][18][19][20] and its blatant racism[21][22] (it also supports and
encourages trophy hunting, which I personally don’t have a problem with, but I
assume goes against your beliefs). They do a lot of great work, don’t get me
wrong, but there are… better… organizations out there.
And Sea Shepherds, whose only tactics are direct action (illegal, ineffective,[23] frequently dangerous to
other people[24])
and ad campaigns. You know it’s bad when even Greenpeace opposes your tactics [24]. Instead of helping put alternatives to fishing and whaling in place, Sea
Shepherds just violently protest. Sometimes they pick up trash on the shore,
but that’s about all the good they do.
“I’ve worked at a
veterinarian’s office as a tech for the past few years, and I have never once
seen a naturally carnivorous or omnivorous animal forced into veganism.”
There’s enough people feeding their carnivorous pets a vegan diet for
brands like Benevo, Ami, Yarrah, Compassion Circle, V-dog, Evolution,
Veggieanimals, Ketun, Halo, and Soopa to find profit in producing vegan pet
food. Recently Jackson Galaxy promoted a vegan dog food on his facebook page,[25] which likely encouraged a
lot of pet owners to go buy that. You might not have seen it in real life, but
it happens and it’s a problem.
“But the fact is that
condemning [PETA] for humanely euthanizing healthy, adoptable animals is
short-sighted and hypocritical.”
What’s the moral difference between killing an excess dog and killing a
cow? I assure you, the animal doesn’t care about the reason why it’s killed.
You have to either accept that killing a healthy animal is fine because the
animal’s own choice doesn’t matter, or you have to accept that you’re putting
your philosophy before the well-being of the individual animals. Take a second
to think about how you can support animal rights even though you care more
about your moral convictions than the animals’ desires. If you believe that
killing is cruel and you have a problem with killing cows for that reason, but
not dogs, this entire spiel is not about being cruelty free; it’s about
following your philosophy to its end, no matter what.
“This problem [of
overcrowded shelters] won’t be fixed until people stop breeding animals–if your
animal was purchased from a pet store or a breeder, you’re part of the problem.
You are the reason so many healthy, adoptable animals have to be euthanized.
Adopt, don’t shop.”
Adopt, don’t shop is a catchy slogan, but it’s not really practical in
real life. Responsible breeders take great care to spay/neuter any animal
that’s not breeding stock and to find homes for the animals they’ve bred. If
there’s an animal they can’t find a home for, they’ll keep it. Responsible
breeders do not contribute to the overcrowding of pets at shelters. Responsible
breeders are not puppy mills.
There are so many reasons to buy from a breeder instead of adopting.
Some people want a certain temperament. Some people want a health guarantee.
Some people only have room for a small breed or need an allergy-friendly breed.
Some people need an animal for a specific job. If these didn’t buy from a
breeder, they wouldn’t go out and adopt instead. They would just not get a pet.
Following the idea of ‘adopt, don’t shop’ to its end, we also run into
the very conclusion of pets not existing. No dogs or cats or horses or
chickens. Nothing. Granted, this is the goal of most animal rights groups,[26][27][28] but the thought of completely
eradicating dogs is just completely and utterly depressing, and I can’t
understand how anyone would want that.
“But more animals are bred and
surrendered than there are people willing to adopt them, and there’s not enough
money to keep all these animals alive and healthy. So we as the human stewards
of these animals have a choice to make: we either humanely euthanize them, or
we let them starve to death in overcrowded shelters.”
No one can afford to feed farm animals without selling products from
them, which is why farm sanctuaries are always struggling to get by. If it was
common practice to sell milk, eggs, wool, and so on from the animals we take
care of, there would be no issue with funding their continued care. Oh wait, it
is! Farmers are just stewards of animals who fund their care by selling animal
products. And since you don’t seem to have a problem euthanizing healthy
animals if there’s just the slightest risk we might not be able to feed them –
and since the animal doesn’t care why it’s being killed and likely isn’t even
aware it’s being killed – is there really a problem putting them down and then using
their meat? Unless you do really care more about simply following your
philosophy than about ending cruelty.
This is a wonderful break down, but I would like to also add a point. These animals are not being “killed for no reason”. Some people will say meat is no reason. It’s not. It a valid reason. People need to eat. But not having animal products would get rid of a lot of every day products. I could make a long list but I have found some simple, easy to understand pictures to help keep it short and sweet.
Meat is not the only animal product we utilize and stoping animal productions will get rid of other everyday products. And no matter how hard you try, animal agriculture is not going away, everyone benefits from it.
Kitty here! Umm, I know this is a bit unorthodox, but… Y’all Tumblr bebes are super sweet about this sort of thing, so I’m posting something here and here only.
I just got a cat.
When New Cat is named and fully acclimated, she will def join the dogs, guinea pigs, and chickens as a Tumblr/Instagram regular.
But I have…mixed feelings.
My last cat died six months ago. We didn’t get another cat to replace her–c’est impossible, she was irreplaceable. Rather, we did it because we know two things:
1. A house that’s had a cat in it will always feel empty without a cat in it.
2. We have money and space and time and patience and love, and shelters are full of cats who don’t got none of those things.
Still, I’ve been thinking about my last cat Clementine a lot. And I think it would be healing to me to share a few photos of her.
This was Clementine. We adopted her when she was 14 years old. That’s old. If she were human, she would’ve been in her early seventies. Her previous owner had moved into a nursing home. She was lucky to land in one of the few no-kill shelters with enough resources to accept a cat of her age. Many don’t.
Clementine was terribly stressed out being in the shelter after so many years in one person’s home. Her fur started to fall out, and she refused to eat. She hid all the time and hissed if approached. No one applied for her.
We saw a lot of great cats at the shelter. For some reason, she was the one my partner and I both couldn’t stop thinking about. We talked about it, and decided we had the patience, emotional maturity, and financial stability needed to address the realities of adopting a shy geriatric cat. So we took her home, and released her under the bed.
“We might never see this cat,” I told my partner. “We might just know she’s here by periodic dips in the level of the food bowl.”
“I’d be okay with that,” he said.
“I would too.”
We didn’t see her for 36 hours.
Then, I heard a little sound while I was sitting in bed–not a meow, but a chirp. I looked down, and she sitting there, looking up at me. She chirped again. I patted the blanket. She sprang up beside me and started purring. Surprised, I took this blurry, crappy photo.
Within a week, she was climbing into our laps and kneading us with rapturous abandon. Sometimes she would start to drool out of pure joy.
Now, one complication was our dog. Clementine had never met a dog before, and I’d intended to introduce them very slowly and carefully. When she caught her first glimpse of our dog Brother, I was focused wholly on him, making sure he didn’t lunge or startle her. She darted past me, and ran to rub her face against him.
She was sleeping on top him by the end of the week.
To our complete surprise, Clementine was not scared of dogs.
Clementine loved dogs.
All dogs. Any dogs.
We foster dogs, and every new one that came home got the same treatment. She ran to them like an old lover, chirping her barely-audible chirps, paws warming up to give them a deep tissue massage the moment they sat down.
She put in an application to adopt Sunny, a red heeler mix who was our our 13th or 14th foster. We accepted her application and made him our second dog.
In the course of her four-year career, she cat-trained over a dozen dogs, making each of them infinitely more adoptable. Many went on to permanent homes with cats.
I was always hovering around her and the dogs, incredibly nervous that one might injure her. She’d been declawed by her first owner; she was defenseless.
But she knew exactly how to handle each one. She sat calmly and accepted sloppy licks from overly-affectionate dogs. She hid from excitable, high-energy dogs until after their playtime. We had one that was so afraid of cats that she was borderline aggressive towards them, but Clementine was absolutely determined. That dog was sleeping peacefully next to her after a month of relentless displays of patient friendliness.
Clem was the Nurse Joy of the house. She always knew if someone was hurting, emotionally or physically.
In this photo, our older dog Brother was suddenly deathly sick. Underneath the blanket he’s swaddled in more blankets and many layers of towels, because he was uncontrollably oozing blood. When we brought him home from the emergency vet, Clementine immediately crouched on top of his head, purring and kneading so intensely that it felt like she was in some kind of trance. He recovered fully.
When a (human) friend of ours was recovering from a horrible trauma, Clementine parked herself on her chest and refused to budge.
“But… But… I don’t like cats…” our friend said, a last feeble protest before submitting to Clementine’s healing ministrations.
We had four glorious years with Clementine. She made it to 18–a great age for a cat. She died peacefully, without pain, and is buried on our property, underneath a her favorite catnip plant.
I don’t know what her life was like before we met, but I know she was happy in those four years. She showed it to us every single day.
I’m so glad we took a chance on a shy senior. There were a lot of risks and a lot of unknowns. We were so focused on accepting those that we weren’t prepared for what we got: the best outcome of all possible outcomes.
That’s all I wanted to say, really! Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.
New Cat is 14, the same age Clementine was when we adopted her. She’s in the early stages of renal disease, but we’re hoping she has a few good years left. I’m excited to get to know New Cat. I’m looking forward to posting pictures of her as she finds her place in our house.
I wrote an article soon after she died about why I think senior pets are totally worth it. You can read it here:
I’m so amazingly touched by all of the responses. I knew I could count on Tumblr bebes to appreciate Clem’s story! Thank you so much. My heart feels healed knowing she might convince others to give senior rescues a chance.
Also I’m happy to introduce New Cat.
This is Clover.
Like a clover: she is very smol and easily overlooked, but it’s good luck that we found her.
ifesbob 