The late Roger CarasYou can get guarantees and warranties when you buy an appliance or even a used car, but none are available when you buy or adopt (or inherit) a pet. And they never will be.
former President ASPCA
This is true: A friend was thinking of buying a dog for her family. She mentioned a breed and then asked me, "Can you guarantee that this dog will never bite?" She was serious. "I can not guarantee that your husband will not bite, much less your dog," I answered. "Who do you know who is incapable of error or is guaranteed never to go wrong, no matter what the situation?"
Will this dog chew or prove a little more difficult to housebreak than usual? Will that cat scratch furniture? I can not tell you if your son will grow up to be the Pope, a rabbi, minister or drug peddler. One of my closest boyhood friends who was tall, handsome, brilliant, musically gifted and came from a privileged family is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for first degree murder. It was an end that no one could possibly have predicated.
It is often said that you should use at least as much care and intelligence when you get a pet as you do when you buy a dishwasher or a car. Certainly you should do that, but remember the difference. You are not getting a mechanical device in a pet; you are locking step with a living, breathing, feeling creature not all that different from yourself, except you can grow up and it can not. That is what is often so appealing about pets-neoteny, their retention of juvenile characteristics. And if it is true that we are a little brighter than our pets, then we should demonstrate it in our ability to accept responsibility.
Pets, God love them, can make mistakes. They are at least as prone to accidents as you or and the children and friends in your life. Do not give up until you have really gone the distance be that through obedience training classes or veterinary remedies or what ever it takes.
My daughter (and her husband and their kids) has a three-legged, random-bred dog-named Chloe. She was born with five legs, two on her right shoulder, both useless. The family that owned her mother (why was she not spayed?) threw Chloe out of the window of a moving car into a pile of snow. The act was seen, poor frozen Chloe rescued. She wasn't a week old. The useless legs were amputated and Chloe was then a needy little three-legged dog.
I shudder to think what percentage of prospective dog owners would have turned away. I am proud that Pamela and Joe did not. They say that Chloe is as fine a pet as they have ever known. By the way, except for their rescued Greyhound, Luke, Chloe can outrun any other dog they have, two fiery little terriers included. We do not give up on the people we love if we value our badge of distinction—human beings. We do not ask for or expect perfection or freedom from error. That is because we are realists when it comes to our own species. Extend that intelligence and grasp on to the reality of other species, too. Do not demand of a dog or cat what you can not demand of your spouse, parents or children. Do not give up; hang in there, be part of a support network. Tell your pet that it is really okay, that you will help them work it out, whatever it is, just the way you would with other family members.
That, my friend, is what your pet is – a loving family member. Are you deserving of its love? Love, after all, is the one guarantee you can expect your pet to offer.
Reprinted from the ASPCA Animal Watch Spring 1995, Vol. 15, No 1, with permission from The American Society for the Prevention of cruelty to Animals, 424 East 92nd St. New York, NY 10128