My Pet, Your Animal

Some years ago whenever you visited some houses in the surrounding villages, as soon as you walked up to the gate you would be greeted by the intense, deep-toned, frenzied barking of a dog large enough to eat you. Alarmed, you would look around before entering and you would be relieved to see the dog was chained up. Inside the yard, you would see that the dog would be on a long chain, have a couple of old pots nearby with food and water and a place where it could sleep sheltered from the weather. And it would transcend, as the owner talked about what a great watch-dog it was, that the dog lived all its life in that corner of the yard, fed only left-overs or bones. And that was considered normal among villagers that had practicality on their minds.

Something similar occurred with cats. They have long been considered working animals and even easier to take care of than dogs. Because cats were free-roaming, living in barns and fields, living off the mice and rats they would hunt. But that's it. Some people would never leave food out for the cats, convinced that if they did so, they cats would not bother to hunt out the vermin in the barns. If the cats tried to enter the house they would be sent howling outside with the broom or the mop. Some people still treat cats this way, including a neighbor or two in this village. Or course, those cats become feral cats, trying to find the easiest meal, which isn't always waiting to be caught in a field. 

Things have begun to change, though, partly pushed along by tougher laws against mistreatment of animals, and partly by a change in lifestyle. Now you tend to see dogs being walked on a leash, and when you visit, the dog is free to roam the yard and will greet you at the gate. Veterinarians used to be called only to treat animals important to the farmer, such as a cow or a pig. Now, people take their pets to the vet's office, to get treatment which a few years ago people would not see as necessary. After all, if a dog died, it would be replaced with another that would bark its head off at a stranger. If a cat died, it wouldn't matter, because there would be another twenty roaming around. Cats now are taken care of, given shots, and spayed or neutered. People used to find it strange that I would keep my cats mostly indoors and give them cat food instead of letting them roam free with only mice to eat a few years ago. Now those people do the same. Except for one or two neighbors still stuck in the past. 

It's another sign of change in the rural world. In the past, when living in a village meant subsistence farming and being practical ensured having food on the table, animals were seen as filling a need in the life of the household in a useful sense. The concept of pets didn't exist. There were animals that were friendlier than others, and that would follow the human that would treat it well, but they still weren't considered pets. My husband remembers a donkey that his family had had for thirty years. The entire family treated it with respect and the donkey lived well with them until it died of old age. But it was a working animal, not a pet. And pets such as hamsters, mice, or parakeets didn't exist in villages. Much less snakes or lizards. And talk to an older person about having a Vietnamese pig as a companion and they look funnily at you. A pig is for butchering, not petting and walking around on a leash.

Things are changing. It's now considered inhumane having a dog tied up its entire life or starving cats so they become hunters. The other day a video of two men abandoning a dog by trying to throw it over the fence of an animal shelter sparked outrage. Outrage that someone would abandon a pet, and outrage at how it was done. Twenty years ago it wouldn't have made the news. Animals are beginning to be respected as living beings. I wonder when that respect will be given to all sorts of humans, as well.