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Let's Stop Keeping Pets
Pets are lovable, frequently delightful. The dog and the cat, the most favored of pets, are beautiful, intelligent animals. To assume the care for them can help bring out the humanity in our children and even in us. A dog or a cat can teach us a lot about human nature; they are a lot more like us than some might think. More than one owner of a dog has said that the animal understands everything he says to it. So a mother and father who have ever cared for pets are likely to be more patient and understanding with their children as well, and especially to avoid making negative or rude remarks in the presence of a child, no matter how young.
It is touching to see how a cat or dog - especially a dog - attaches itself to a family and wants to share in all its goings and comings. If certain animal psychologists are right, a dog adopts his family in a most literal way - taking it for granted that the family is the band of dogs he belongs to.
It is sometimes said that the cat "takes all and gives nothing."
But is that really true? A cat can teach us a valuable lesson about how to be contented, how to be serene and at ease, how to sit and contemplate. Whereas a dog's constant pleas for attention become, sometimes, a bit too much. Nevertheless it is the dog who can teach us lessons of loyalty and devotion that no cat ever knew.
So there's plenty to be said in favor of keeping pets. But with all that in mind, I still say let's stop keeping pets. Not that a family should kill its pets. Very few could bring themselves to do that. To be practical, I am suggesting that if we do not now have a pet we should not acquire one; second, that if we now have a pet, we let it be our last one. I could never say that pets are bad. I am saying, let's give up this good thing - the ownership of a pet - in favor of a more imperative good.
The purchase, the health care, the feeding and housing and training of a pet - and I chiefly mean the larger, longer-lived pets - cost time and money. Depending on the animal's size and activity, it's special tastes and needs, and the standard of living we establish for it, the care of a pet can cost form a dollar a week to a dollar or more a day. I would not for a moment deny it is worth that.
But facts outside the walls of our home keep breaking in on our awareness. Though we do not see the poverty-stricken people of India and Africa and South America, we can never quite forget that they are there. Now and then their faces are shown in the news, or is the begging ads of relief organizations. Probably we send a donation whenever we can.
But we do not, as a rule, feel a heavy personal responsibility for the afflicted and deprived for we are pretty thoroughly formed by the individualistic, competitive society we live in. The first dime we ever made was ours to spend in any way we chose. No one thought of questioning that. That attitude, formed before we had learned to think, usually prevails through our life: "I made my money. I can spend it any way I like."
But more and more we are reading that the people of the "Third World" feel bitter at us in the developed countries (with the United States far more developed than any of the others) for our seizing hold of two-thirds of the world's wealth and living like kings while they work away all day to earn a bare living.
The money and the time we spend on pets is simply not our own to spend as we like in a time of widespread want add starvation. A relief organization advertises that for $33 a month they can give hospital care to a child suffering from kwashiorkor - the severe dificiency disease which is simply a starving for protein. Doing without such a pet, and then sending the money saved to a relief organization would mean saving a life - over the years, several human lives.
Children not suffering from such a grave disease could be fed with half that amount - not on a diet like ours, but on plain, basic, life-sustaining food. It is not unreasonable to believe that the amount of money we spend on the average pet dog could keep a child alive in a region of great poverty. To give what we would spend on a cat might not feed a child, but it would probably pay for his medical care or basic education. The point needs no laboring. That is all that need be said.
讓我們停止養寵物
寵物是可愛的，又常討人喜歡。狗和貓――人們最喜愛的寵物，是漂亮和聰明的動物。擔當起照料它們的責任有助於我們在孩子身上甚至在我們自己身上培養人情味。一隻狗或一隻貓能教給我們許多關於人類的本性的東西。它們比某些人想像的更像人類。不止一個養狗的人曾經說過狗理解他對它說的一切話。所以曾經照顧過寵物的父母可能也會對他們的孩子更有耐心和理解，特別是能避免在孩子面前做否定和不禮貌的評論，不管他年齡多小。
看到貓和狗――特別是狗――對一個家庭是如何地依戀，如何地想要分享家裡發生的一切事情，是十分感人的。如果某些動物心理學家是對的，狗以最忠實的方式接受它的家庭――理所當然地認為家即是它所屬的那一群狗。
有時人們說貓"索取一切，什麼都不給予"。但那是真的嗎?關於如何滿足，如何安詳自在，如何靜坐深思，貓可以給我們上有價值的一課。而狗不斷尋求人們和注意，有時太過分了。儘管如此，狗能教給我們忠誠和獻身，這是貓從不知道的。
於是人們便有許多理由贊成養寵物。但儘管心裡明白所有這些理由，我依然要說讓我們停止養寵物吧。並不是說一個家庭應該殺死他們的寵物，很少有人能使自己做這樣的事。實際上，我是在建議如果我們現在沒有養寵物，我們就不要弄一個;第二，如果我們現在有一隻寵物，就讓它成為我們的最後一隻吧。我怎麼也不會說寵物很壞;我是說，讓我們放棄這個好東西，去支持一個更緊迫的有益的事業吧。
購買一隻寵物，照顧它的健康、餵養它、給它提供住處、訓練它――我主要指的是較大的、較長壽的寵物――花費時間和錢財。根據動物的體形大小、活動，其特殊口味和需要，我們為之建立起生活標準，照顧一隻寵物的花費可能從一周一美元到一天一美元或更多。我從不否認餵養它的價值。
但是我們房子外的事實卻不斷闖入我們的意識。雖然我們沒有看到印度、非洲和南美洲窮困潦倒的人們，我們決不能完全忘記他們的存在。他們的面容不時出現在新聞裡或救濟組織的求援廣告裡。也許我們有能力時也送去了一份捐助。
但我們通常並不感到對貧窮的人們負有重大的個人責任，因為我們幾乎完全是由我們生活於其中的這個個人主義的、競爭的社會所塑造成的。我們曾經掙得的第一個十分硬幣是自己的，我們可以選擇花掉它的任何一種方式。沒人想到對此提出質疑，那種態度形成於我們學會思考之前，通常會貫穿我們的一生："我掙自己的錢，我可以以我喜歡的任何方式花掉它。"但我們越來越多地在閱讀中了解到"第三世界"的人們懷恨發達國家的我們，因為我們佔有了世界2/3的財富，生活得像國王一樣，而他們整天工作以求餬口。
我們花在寵物身上的金錢和時間在廣泛渴望幫助和飢餓遍布的時代絕對不是我們可以隨心所欲花費的私有物。一個救援組織做廣告說，每個月捐獻33美元就可使一個患營養不良症的孩子住院治療――這是一種僅僅由於缺乏蛋白質而產生的嚴重營養不良疾病。不養寵物，然後把節省下來的錢捐給救援組織將意味著挽救一條生命――幾年後，就能挽救幾條生命。
沒有遭到那種嚴重疾病的孩子可以用那個數目的半數餬口――不是們那樣的食物，只是一般的、基本的、維持生命的食物。相信我們平均花在寵物狗身上的錢能夠養活一個特別貧窮地區的孩子是不過分的。拿出我們花在貓身上的錢可能養活不了一個孩子，但它們可能付清他的醫療費或基本教育費。這一點無須詳述，這就是所有要說的。