Now I am not very good at this. If I feel strongly about something I will speak my mind. But tonight I exercised my self control and stayed quiet.
We went to a friend for dinner for the first time and they have 1 cat and 2 ferrets. The cat is declawed and not only is allowed outside, but is allowed outside day and night. It comes and goes as it pleases. Not only that but he thinks it's hilarious to hiss and growl and bark at this at who is scared of people, and not terribly sociable - I'm not surprised!!!!! She says now that she really regrets having the cat declawed, and wishes she hadn't done it. Apparently at age 6 months in her New york apartment the kitten was tearing things apart, so the housemate gave her an ultimatum - declaw the cat or get rid of it. She decided declawing was her only option. Now we all know that is the WORST option!! I mean of course a 6 month old kitten is going to get bored in an apartment when she's home by herself all day! So she gets punished by getting her claws removed
The 2 ferrets are very cute (I'll post pics of them somewhere), but he was overly rough with them - throwing them at each other to make them play with each other, putting them in this tube thing, then putting the 2 ends of the tube together so the poor little things couldn't get out - even when they started trying. Apparently they're not very toilet trained, and one of them went in a corner while we were there, and he picked it up, blew in its face repeatedly, sprayed it IN IT'S FACE with a water mister - and the mister was just centimetres away from the poor little things face, then he rubbed its head into the wee (quite hard I felt), then saturated it with the mister because he said the ferret hates water.
I felt horrible, and expressed that I thought that was enough, and they should try other methods to prevent it going rather than trying to punish her which she doesn't understand. His wife occasionally told him to settle with them, but I think it was purely for my benefit.
I figured that no matter what I said they wouldn't change anyway. I told them in a calm manner why declawing was so bad, which they agreed on, but I think they just have no idea about animal emotions, and that maybe the way they treat their pets is the cause of the ferrets not using the litter tray properly, and why the cat is so freaked out by life in general.
We went to a friend for dinner for the first time and they have 1 cat and 2 ferrets. The cat is declawed and not only is allowed outside, but is allowed outside day and night. It comes and goes as it pleases. Not only that but he thinks it's hilarious to hiss and growl and bark at this at who is scared of people, and not terribly sociable - I'm not surprised!!!!! She says now that she really regrets having the cat declawed, and wishes she hadn't done it. Apparently at age 6 months in her New york apartment the kitten was tearing things apart, so the housemate gave her an ultimatum - declaw the cat or get rid of it. She decided declawing was her only option. Now we all know that is the WORST option!! I mean of course a 6 month old kitten is going to get bored in an apartment when she's home by herself all day! So she gets punished by getting her claws removed
The 2 ferrets are very cute (I'll post pics of them somewhere), but he was overly rough with them - throwing them at each other to make them play with each other, putting them in this tube thing, then putting the 2 ends of the tube together so the poor little things couldn't get out - even when they started trying. Apparently they're not very toilet trained, and one of them went in a corner while we were there, and he picked it up, blew in its face repeatedly, sprayed it IN IT'S FACE with a water mister - and the mister was just centimetres away from the poor little things face, then he rubbed its head into the wee (quite hard I felt), then saturated it with the mister because he said the ferret hates water.
I felt horrible, and expressed that I thought that was enough, and they should try other methods to prevent it going rather than trying to punish her which she doesn't understand. His wife occasionally told him to settle with them, but I think it was purely for my benefit.
I figured that no matter what I said they wouldn't change anyway. I told them in a calm manner why declawing was so bad, which they agreed on, but I think they just have no idea about animal emotions, and that maybe the way they treat their pets is the cause of the ferrets not using the litter tray properly, and why the cat is so freaked out by life in general.