What most people would do, when their pets had, gone missing, translated…
In a nearby alley, there was a posting, a black terrier mix, Lala was lost, the owner posted a rewards poster for it. Because I also have a terrier at home, we’d stopped as we passed by the post, to look at it again, even my three-year-old son knew, that Lala hadn’t gone home yet.
Last week, that post was torn off, my son asked, “Where did the dog go?”, I don’t know how to explain to him finding lost pets is a next-to-impossible feat, that maybe, the owner just, gave up on finding the animal, or maybe, the notice was, torn off by some displeased local residents, I can only reply, knowing that it was, least likely, “Maybe Lala returned home, and is no longer lost anymore.”
That day as I got home, I saw an article on looking for a lost cat. The cat leapt out of the opened lanai, because “normally, the cat wouldn’t run off”, so the owner didn’t microchip him. The description of the cat was very detailed, so much so, I’d wanted to tell the owner, a lot of cats looked like that, a lot of the cats are white in the bellies, with white feet and eyelines, the problem is, it’s next to impossible, to get a good look at a cat that’s become panicky after running away from home.
And, although this lucky owner too, found her cat back, but, the naïve descriptions of that lost cat notice pounded me down, “It’s only natural, that it’d gotten picked up by someone, because of how cute it looked”? Of course not, I’d wanted to tell the owner, only you think that your cat is cute, that it was, a matter of fact that you can believe, that it got, picked up by someone else, I have a long-hair cat, a tabby, an orange cat, a multi-colored cat, and only I think they’re cute, the cats astray from the streets, who would easily take them home, at most, only put down a canned food, patted them over the head, post a photo on FB, on one’s own experiences of “bumping into” a street cat that looked like one of your relatives’.
a lost dog here, photo from online…
Sometimes, I’d gone online, to read the articles on lost animals, the words without the feelings attached: Q-jon got lost at three in the afternoon today, at Jingmei/Wanlong region, without a collar, her only characteristics is that she’s a mix of brown, black, and white furs; a Labrador mix was lost at eleven in the morn, at Jinghe Exercise Park, his coat is yellow and white, wearing a black vest; my cat the Prince had been lost for a while, he’s close to humans, cats, but not dogs, I hope someone who’d found him will be kind enough to contact me………
Oh, how I really wish I could say, all of those “unique” characteristics, aren’t unique at all! A little timid, loved foods, about forty-four pounds, already spayed, well behaved, doesn’t bark or bite out of turn, so what? In the few sort seconds to few short minutes of bumping into them, nobody can tell that the lost animals are, unique, besides, you’d described what’s unique by your own perceptions, nobody knows how the animal will behave, when s/he is hungry, in a strange place, without a home.
On the lost dog websites, I’d even seen the photos of old dogs, wandering about the streets, turns out, they too, are looking. Look, I’d not even realized that he’d been gone. For anyone else, your precious pets are easily brushed off my mind.
Can you, who owned pets, please, set up that blockade on the lanai, like you would, fearing that a baby would crawl onto the lanai, and fall off; can you microchip, as you would, put a note of emergency contact in a young child’s pockets; keep the gates closed, and leave the doggy doors opened, and, before you opened your front doors, see if your animals are, waiting, to make their escapes. If your cute children were taken home by some strangers to raise, it’d made you feel thrilled, wouldn’t it? So, do use that same attitude, to treat the pets you’d lost too.
So, although we all say, we loved our animals, but, they’d become, replaceable, after all, we can always, go to the pound, to pick another dog or cat up, and, put the one that was lost (either ran off on its own, or we’d abandoned it purposefully???) into the back of our minds, because we still don’t respect these animals enough yet, although we say we loved them, but, comparing to having your own young taken, you’d worked harder, to find that kid back, compared to when you’d lost your pets, you wouldn’t go to the extremes as you would your child, would you???