veganarky

After giving away most of my material possessions, saying good bye to family and friends, and moving to the other side of the this planet1 I am in place (in the broad sense) to consider fostering (possibly adopting) a cat from a shelter. I am still trying to get my head around/resolve some concerns and a moral conundrum. In reflecting on these, I share some concerns that the words of others have helped me to gain perspective on — to a point which I feel I can make an informed decision. I am opposed to the notion of a ‘pet’, of animals being chattel …

Tae, a blue-cattle cross we adopted more than 10 years ago, was put to sleep today, after suffering a ruptured (previously undiagnosed) Hemangiosarcoma. It was the first time I was directly involved in a euthanasia decision and process. The varied emotions, thoughts, hope, catharsis of it all. The apparent peace, the warmth, the softness, the sleep-like state that resulted were all new experiences. The level of compassion of the staff at the veterinary hospital is something I could not have expected. Something almost overwhelming in itself. In the weeks prior, Tae’s vision and hearing had dete…

One of the animals we rescued was euthanised recently. We adopted her after her ‘owner’ decided it was too expensive to treat her arthritic condition — a condition directly resulting from the inappropriate enclosure she was kept in for may years — and requested she be euthanised (i.e discarded). The final year of her life was much more enriching (as many photo’s attest), succumbing, in the end to, metastatic nodules in her lungs and liver and lots of thoracic fluid, leading to respiratory distress. Whislt enriching, her passing has invoked past thoughts on whether we really do enough for the a…