Pets

[B-A-C]

Pets.

Pets are a good thing. I've had pets in my life. 7 dogs over the years.
A few parrots, a few hamsters, and a number of tropical fish. I also raised
horses for a short time. Pets are good companions, and for the most part they
are loyal. They rarely betray you or lie to you.

Pets aren't really mentioned too much in the Bible. Of course there are shepherds
and sheep, In 2 Sam 12:3-4; Nathan uses a story of a pet lamb to show David his sin.

I've noticed lately pets are now accepted many places they weren't a few years ago.
I've seen pets in restaurants, banks, on airplanes, in nice hotels, and even in movie
theaters. I suppose there is nothing wrong with this if the pets are well enough behaved.

But I saw an interesting statistic that says more money is spent on pets (this doesn't
include farm livestock) than on orphans and the homeless. Is this true? Have pets become
more important to us as a society than humans? I work with a guy who is a Hindu from India.
We passed a Petco store a few days ago. We went inside, there were people getting perms, shampoo's,
manicures, and even dental work for their pets. One lady was (somewhat boastfully) saying she
just spent $2,500 on a "day spa" for her dog. My friend was amazed by this. he said they have no Petco stores there. Poverty is so high, most people would be embarrassed to spend that kind of money on a pet.

I suppose there's nothing wrong with indulging our pets sometimes.

But a lot of my step-daughters friends are in their 30's now. None of them have children, but
all of them have pets. I was listening to a conversation a few weeks ago about how children
are messy, expensive, time consuming, misbehaving, and take a long time to potty train.
Pets are "so much easier and cheaper". Have we really gotten to the point that cheap and easy
is what determines our family choices?

This has been on my mind for a while, but a story in today's paper about a rich woman who
died and left 7 million dollars to her cats was interesting. She has 3 children, none of them
got any inheritance from her (according to the article). Maybe her children were ungrateful brats,
I don't know. But even so... to put our pets before our children... just seems... wrong.

If you have a pet, that's great. I'm not discouraging that at all. I think God created some
of them to be our companions. But I wonder if we as a society have started putting more value
and priorities on our pets, than on people. In some cases our own families, but in many cases,
simply the homeless, orphans and widows in our communities.

The ancient Egyptians worshiped cats as gods. We need to be careful our pets do not become our idols.

 

[meldieching]

Yes true that pets are mentioned in the bible and pets will be part of our life. Today it is true that pets are more widely accepted at almost any places you want to go. But the problem is pets has become a social status to others. They spend so much money on their pets than helping poor people that needs food, water and shelter.

 

[amadeus2]

Over our lives together, my wife and I have had and loved many pets, mostly dogs, but a few years ago the Lord called us to do a special work for Him. To go into it we found that our two dogs were going to hinder us. We had gotten both of them from the local humane society about 2 years before and we would not let them go back there. We searched long and carefully to find a home for them when finally we received an offer. I will not provide too many details to avoid giving personal information out on a public forum, but God was in the whole thing. We drove our babies to someone we had met out of state who love animals and who took care of many of them. We came to know these people well and were certain that the dogs would probably receive better care than we ever had given them... but we cried real tears all of the way to their new home and back again. That was about 5 years ago.

Now we visit them periodically as well and have become very good friends with their new family. I am sure the babies had as much trouble in the beginning as we did, but it did not last for long. One of our little dogs bit the man on the hand at their first meeting and it scared us to death. We knew his wife pretty well through the Internet but not him. But, that is all past. Now they have bonded and that little boy dog and that once [to him] strange man are the best of friends. Give God the glory!

God has blessed us in our special work. He knew how hard it was for us to give up those two little dogs and He always understood that that we could not have given them up to other than a very good home. He showed us the way and we continue to thank Him for that along with His many other blessings.

For those people caring for those two babies and other animals is a ministry. God cares about animals as well.

 

[B-A-C]

Yesterday we had a lady bring her "emotional support" dog to Sunday morning service.
This lady is not blind or physically handicapped in any way.

 

[Waggles]

Yesterday we had a lady bring her "emotional support" dog to Sunday morning service.

Ought not Jesus be her emotional support; her well-being support; her healing support; her friend and confidant,.
Unbelievers and others outside the Covenant of Israel were referred to as dogs, even by Jesus himself.

A dog is a very poor substitute for the God of salvation.