Friday food for thought quote: stray cats … or not?

"Seriously? Can't a guy just go for a walk in the neighborhood?"

Not to discount the work of cat rescuers who rescue and care for stray cats. But this passage from Linda Lombardi’s “Animals Behaving Badly” made me wonder how much of shelter crowding might - again, might – be the result of well-meaning rescuers unwittingly “saving” cats who already have families:

“Many a perfectly contented outdoor cat has found himself scooped up from his daily route and confined, then seen his photo plastered on ‘found cat’ posters, when all he wanted was to be left alone to get home in time for dinner.”

- Linda Lombari, author ”Animals Behaving Badly”

Friday food for thought quote: animal welfare and the church

“Still, there is a growing awareness that how we treat animals is a measure of our own humanity—that violence inflicted on animals is inexorably linked to human-against-human violence, that compassion is a big enough idea to encompass animals as well as humans.”

Christine Gutleben,  senior director of the Faith Outreach program of The Humane Society of the United States, in a piece about animal welfare and the church

Friday food for thought quote: does a dog have a conscience, from Temple Grandin

“[Y]ou don’t have to have language to have a conscience, which means it’s at least possible for an animal to have a conscience, too. Many owners have seen their dogs act remorseful after doing something wrong, but animal behaviorists always reject this interpretation. However, no one has shown that an innocent animal can’t feel bad for doing something he knows is wrong, the same way an innocent child can feel bad for doing something he knows is wrong. We shouldn’t assume that we know for a fact animals never experience the emotion of guilt, because we don’t.”

-Temple Grandin, “Animals in Translation”

 

Click here to read more quotes about animals on the Heavenly Creatures blog.

Friday Food For Thought: quote from St. Francis of Assisi

“If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who deal likewise with their fellow men.”
- St. Francis of Assisi

Click here to read more quotes about animals on the Heavenly Creatures blog.