Foffdaughter: Tomfoolery

Perceiving Animals: humans and beasts in early modern English culture   Author: Erica Fudge

p.19 

"The violence involved in taming wild nature- in expressing human superiority - destroys the difference between the species.  The city, the place of humanity, is opposed to the wilderness, the place of savagery."

p. 40

"The animal can be dominated or represent human power, it has no power or potential of its own."

Saddle up- let's get biblical.
Genesis 1:26-28  --  Divine declaration ranks two-leggers over animals.  At this point, two-leggers as a species enjoy their comprehensive sovereignty.  (Eventually there are some suggestions about what creatures to eat, what creatures not to eat, yadda yadda yadda.  Guidelines more than restrictions.)  Ah heck- let's just lump in Genesis 1:29, specifying that plants are alive, and therefore they are a great gift from above; a system of elimination can now be used, anywhere on the planet, to establish the edges of this god-given entitlement.  (Assuming that the subject in question is not a fellow master-of-the-universe-two-legger) It is a simple process for any and all humans:  

Is that thing over there something that serves us and that we own?  

Well- is it alive?  If it's alive, it's ours.  

 The last scrap of thought on this string is much less opaque.
Anthropomorphism  --  attributing human motivation, characteristics, or behavior to nonhuman organisms, inanimate objects, religious deities  etc.  

As if our species wasn't silly enough...

Foffmom: The Life boat is full

I have been struggling with a concept that is difficult to accept. However, I sense it is crucial that I accept it. Just as I have used the analogy with FoffDad of a life boat filled with our animals (as in "So who would you chose to throw overboard?" in response to a momentary rant of "We have too many animals!" usually after stepping in something unsavory), I now must accept that the boat is indeed full. We can take on no more. Shrink filled my last available bedroom. I have learned that with a colony of cats, introducing another new one can either go well or throw the entire colony into a snarling, hissing, nervous mess. And nervous cats often engage in inappropriate excretion . I hate inappropriate excretion, and not just because it can precipitate rants from FoffDad. 

Knock on wood, this has not been a major issue for a long time, but that is because the last time I isolated the two female cats that would not blend in with the female cats downstairs. This was not a hard decision. One of them refuses any cat/cat contact, hates dogs, hates being outside, and basically likes to sit and look out the window. Yeah, she is as big as Jaba the Hut Feline style. Yes she is on a diet. No, it does nothing. The other cat is quite dear, does OK outside, does OK with the dogs, does not like other cats. She is a fragile little thing, so I would never put her outside to be, say, a barn cat. Oddly enough, giving these two cats a bedroom together has worked out much better than having them share a house with other cats. But that fills another bedroom. Our bedroom and the guest bedroom need to stay cat free.

The line between a rescuer and a hoarder to me is that a rescuer does not take on so many animals that the ones already in the home are harmed by the additional drain on resources. So we are full. For the first time. Quite odd.