I recently fell victim to creating my cat Gideon his own facebook page. Yeah, I'm one of those. But I felt bad for posting picture on my facebook profile because not everyone wants their news-feed filled with pictures of my cat, so he has his own page for those that want to see that. Also, he and I are working towards making him a therapy cat and having a facebook page might be helpful once he's certified. But enough with my justifications, I do have something to address. Upon looking through my Gideon's news-feed I found this:
Pet Parents are NOT Moms by Susan Maushart
Now, I'm not going to go off on a rant about how moronic I find one Susan Maushart, because frankly it's a blog post and she's going off on her own tangent on the sanctity of motherhood. She's sick of hearing people fawning over their pets, and I have to admit sometimes we pet parents cross a line. I know I do, did I not just state my cat has a facebook page? Susan is ranting. I get that, and if you are familiar with my work, you know I get that. But personally, I would rather watch people fawn over their pets than their child that took their first big girl or big boy dump this morning. I'm sure I'll do the same when I have kids and all the people around me will be irritated about my enthusiasm over babies first doodoo.
Now to what I really want to rant about! My problem with this blog post is it's clear lack of facts and the obvious problem the author has with picking up a book or animal intelligence study. But who can blame her, she's much too busy taking care of her human offspring and treating her pets like pincushions that inhale food to read anything other than her own published books and praising reviews. And in case you didn't read the astounding literature piece, this is the quote that made me mad:
"It's become ideologically unsound to say so in public, but you and I both know that pets are stupid. Not just "slow" or "differently intelligent" -- just plain stupid. (When we say a poodle is intelligent, we forget that we are speaking in purely relative terms. Compared to a pincushion, sure.) That's not a moral failing. It's not something we love them in spite of. It's something we love them because of."
This isn't as bad as the viral video by Trisha Paytas asking if dogs have brains because they can't talk, but it's in the same neighborhood of stupidity, just a few blocks down from being a neighbor. Animals are in fact smart. When scientists have studied the intelligence of animals they often COMPARE them to toddlers. For instance Chaser. If you don't know who Chaser is look her up. She's a border collie that knows a thousand words. And like a toddler would, she learned them through play and paying attention. If Susan wanted to she wouldn't even need to read, she could go watch
Dogs Decoded, a youtube video by Amaze World Wide and she would understand that dogs are smarter than she is giving them credit for. I could go into detail about this video, but it would be way too long, so you should really go check it out. There are also dogs that are trained to assist their owners with just about everything. There are seeing eye dogs for crying out loud! Yes, lets put blind people in the hands of "dumb" animals, sounds legit. I thought intelligence was in part the ability to learn, but what do I know, Susan has a PhD in Media Ecology so obviously she is an expert in all things animal and in all things motherhood.
What I am saying is this post by Susan Maushart should be taken with a very small grain of thought. It is something rather distasteful for someone who has published several books and is a columnist for a magazine. Now, if this isn't some sort of satirical post than I think Susan shouldn't own pets. She obviously doesn't posses the heart nor time to properly take care of them or understand them. Perhaps she would better benefit from a stuffed animal. And I hate to be the barer of bad news but children aren't booming with intelligent. I was in daycare and if you think no toddler has rubbed their own poo on themselves you are delusional Susan. She even makes a comment about kids not humping the furniture, I babysat a boy that humped a pillow once and told me that's what he would do to me... real profound that one. I know you most likely look with the eyes of a proud mother Susan, but as someone that isn't a mother of human babies I can tell you with untainted and unbiased eyes that not everything your kids say and do is an intellectual gem. In fact, on occasion, I've met animals that have the intellectual high ground over a toddler... and even over a grown adult. But hey Susan, I give you mad props, you finally made a blog post that has over eleven comments and twenty-one tweets. So what if it has over six-hundred comments and only five likes on facebook I still say kudos. Sometimes the best publicity is bad publicity and I think since quite a large percentage of people own pets you must have known you'd get all the attention by writing this blog post of yours.
I know I said I wasn't going to rant about the rest of the 'article', but while I'm at it I can't help myself. There are a lot of definition of mother floating out there. One of which is 'to watch over, nourish, and protect maternally'. Who elected one Susan Maushart the expert on motherhood? What are the guidlines to get into that very selective society? Let me tell you about my cat Gideon, I adopted him from a rescue when his ears were much too big for his head. From there he's been a lot of work. And money. When I adopted him he still had ear mites he was being treated for along with worms. So right off the bat I had a to give him medication and fight with him over the ear drops he would rather shake out onto my shirt than let sit in his ears. Then he fell one day while sleeping and got a bump on his head. I was so concerned I tried to make a vet appointment... for a bump. Well, needless to say that fixed itself until he developed an ulcer under his lip. There was more medication and a vet visit. Later on he would have two emergency vet visits, one on a holiday and another at two in the morning. One emergency procedure and one surgery later and quite a bit of money and he's all good now. Sure, he has feline urinary tract disease and I had to learn to read food labels and his food is more pricey, but he's healthy now so long as I keep doing my job. My cats get meals twice a day, their food is measured out so they stay a healthy weight for their size. There is food they don't like and snub. If I don't feed him on time Gideon will jump onto a shelf and start slowly pushing items off it with his paw until I get up. I've had to both make and buy them toys because they get bored, and when Gideon gets bored he makes a point to do things I hate just to get my attention. My house mate once had a play mouse that made noise and finding it annoying he picked it up and dropped it into the water bowl, successfully killing it. He has a habit of putting his toys back into the toy box too. Gideon walks himself into the vet on a harness and leash as well as knowing basic commands that he has learned sometimes in only a day. You can't tell me he isn't smart nor can you tell me I am not his mom. I take care of him and protect him and in exchange he provides me with love and no small amount of amusement, amazement, and pride. I find it sad that we as humans are such 'superior species' activists. We are the only species that is so hell bent on denying motherhood based on species. There are cats that take in baby squirrels and dogs that treat human babies like their pups. Animals have the capacity to treat the babies of other species like their own... you can tell them they aren't the parents, but they care fuck-all what you say about that. Just like most pet parents. Because you can bitch about us not being parents all you want Susan. You can even nit pick on definitions of motherhood at us, but quite a few of those fall into pet parent categories too. You just don't like it. Being a parent is about loving and caring for someone or some creature and who are you to define the relationship between a pet and a person? The thing I think you're missing is that we know our fur child is not a human baby, even when Gideon is in his penguin outfit I know he's a cat. I am not using him as some sort of human baby replacement. Pet parents aren't taking anything from you. Take a deep breathe Susan. Oh, and watch that video, they found that the same hormone released that makes you bond with your child at birth is also released in a woman when in contact with animals... Funny that.
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