Words of wisdom

There is an attention seeking mental illness that is well known to most people. Its called Munchausens. Here is a description:  a mental illness, in which a person repeatedly acts as if he or she has a physical, emotional or cognitive disorder when, in truth, he or she has caused the symptoms. People with factitious disorders act this way because of an inner need to be seen as ill or injured, not to achieve a concrete benefit, such as financial gain. They are even willing to undergo painful or risky tests and operations in order to get the sympathy and special attention given to people who are truly ill. Some will secretively injure themselves to cause signs like blood in the urine or cyanosis of a limb. Cyanosis is the condition occurring when the blood supply is cut off to a particular part of the body and the skin takes on a dusky blue color. Factitious Disorder Imposed on Self is associated with severe emotional difficulties.

Why I mention this is I see a very similar phenomena today surrounding pets and pet ownership. People seem to have this need to feel as if they "rescued" an animal and have an unhealthy craving for those "atta boys" and pats on the back for doing so, and I'm not the only one who has noticed. Recently a FB poster made the following comment: 

"Why are people so desperate for "hero" status that they are willing to claim "rescue" of animals that in truth were perfectly fine right where they were? Or a slightly imperfect version of "ok" but they seem to believe that every animal (except us humans) must have a "perfect" life. Of course they are also the ones that define what that "perfect" life should be." 

These self proclaimed saviours of all things fun and furry seem to suffer from some sort of need to  project a factitious disorder, malady, imagined cruelty and/or neglect happening to an animal they wish to "save" from certain doom. Sure sounds like a another unhealthy obsession for sympathy and special attention from others to me. 

The truth is I rarely see true animal abuse or neglect. I think our definition of what really is abuse and neglect has expanded beyond all reasonable expectations. Spare the absence of vet care when needed, adequate food and water (shelter is debatable with some species but thats another post) to claim neglect is at best questionable. Spare violent acts with the intent to do harm, but still claiming abuse is at least a leap. Put simply what is one mans pet Tom cat is another mans ball bearing mousetrap. The truth is that there is nothing wrong with that, and it's the cat is who probably cares the least. 

We will visit these issues often here, and I hope that its not too late to open peoples minds back up to putting people before animals and in doing so let each others ideas of pet ownership be an individual pallet. Lets get back to live and let live.