Debbie Schlussel: Get a Clue: Your Dogs Are NOT Your "Children"
Several years ago, I wrote a column, "Pets: The New People." I detailed how so many Americans treat their animals like--and actually better than--they treat people, lavishing them with gifts, aromatherapy, massages, and other exorbitant absurdities.
But it's not just that. If I hear one more person tell me about their "kids"--which I initially believed were human--show me pictures of dogs or cats, or tell me about how well their "kids" treat them, when they are talking about pets, I think I'll kill myself.
It's in that vein that I was annoyed when reading the story about Berwyn Heights, Maryland Mayor Cheye Calvo and his wife, Trinity Tomsic (she won't take his surname, so already there are issues). Yesterday, police raided their home and killed their dogs in connection with a large drug shipment. It was sent to them, but police say they are innocent victims who were among about six unsuspecting recipients.
Calvo and Tomsic held a press conference in which she cried and they showed a giant poster of their dogs:
"Our dogs were our children," said the 37-year-old Calvo. "They were the reason we bought this house because it had a big yard for them to run in."
While I feel for this couple and their pets probably shouldn't have been shot, they need to wake up. I'm not for the wanton killing of animals, but your pets are NOT your children. They are not human. They will not take care of you when you're old. They won't have grandchildren named after you (unless you name their pups after yourself--a sad and sick thought). They won't go to college or work in a job in the American economy. They cannot say your name or express love. They are NOT kids--at least not the kids of anyone with less than four legs.
The Calvo-Tomsics--or is that Tomsic-Calvos? hard to tell--want the Justice Department to investigate. I really hope American tax dollars aren't going to such a ridiculous endeavor--to investigate the accidental shooting of dogs, who some deluded couple thinks are their kids. What happens when someone's antfarm is accidentally stepped on by a fireman putting out a raging fire? I mean, aren't they a little kid's "kids," too. Call in the cavalry.
And this couple are not the only ones guilty of this facade, this mental disorder brought on by the success of PETA and other animal rights groups.
So-called conservative Mark Levin has gone on and on and on, on his nationally syndicated radio show, about his dead dog, Sprite. Levin says his dog was a "hero" because it died of an illness. That's heroic? Puh-leeze. It's a fricking dog.
You hear so many human attributes given to this feline, I thought he transformed himself into Ingrid Koch of PETA. Frankly, if I were Levin's real-life, human children, I'd be a little perturbed and jealous.
Memo to the world: Your dogs are NOT your children. Wake the heck up.
Posted by Debbie on August 8, 2008 11:52 AM to Debbie Schlussel