by Author Name Withheld 118

Created on: September 01, 2007   Last Updated: November 21, 2007

What is your responsibility to your pet? Knowing your own position on your pet's life will help you immeasurably should you need to make a decision to end that life.
It's not a given that you understand your feelings about this issue. You may feel you've got it down, until you come to a hard point and find yourself swimming in uncertainty. That's where the problems begin. I have heard otherwise responsible, intelligent, compassionate and generous people refute their moral obligation to an animal they have taken in; I have seen people struggle through the muddy waters of guilt as they faced huge vet bills they hadn't expected. Spend a few minutes at least thinking about it now, and it could save you many pains later.

Do you accept that having taken in an animal, whether a stray or through some other form of adoption, you have made yourself responsible for its basic care and well-being? This is what you need to know. Everything else, all the other decisions you will make about your pet, proceed from this basic knowledge. However casually you take up the ownership of an animal, you may be sure the animal takes life quite seriously. If your feelings now are uncertain, a crisis may push you into deep problems. Avoid these trials, by facing your feelings straight on, and deciding what you owe your pet, in daily care and in an emergency situation. Perhaps you're not financially or emotionally ready for a pet, despite the desire for one.
If you believe that you can take a creature into your home and implicitly promise to feed it and shelter it, but that you are not responsible for taking care of it to at least some extent during illness or after an accident, then you need to re-think owning a pet of any sort. Some people allow themselves to enjoy the luxury of having pets, but feel that they should be able to avoid all financial and emotional disturbance in times of trouble. The fact that it is "just an animal" justifies this behavior for them. Unfortunately, it doesn't really justify anything. When you agree to let an animal become your pet, you tacitly allow that creature to rely on you. You can't have something for nothing, and the love and comfort and delight that pets give to us isn't free- it comes for the price of shelter, food and care that we have wordlessly promised to them. You may set an upper limit to what is affordable within certain circumstances, but you cannot condemn a pet to lack of medical care or continuing pain without standing on very shaky moral

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