Hi!
A friend of mine who trains puppies shared this thought with me the other
day, and I thought the imagery was so funny, and that his ideas were so
applicable for all companion animals:
 
Can you imagine what it must be like to be brought up by a totally
different species?  Not to mention that the parents that adopted you are
absolutely gigantic compared to you?  Okay, imagine that you were raised
by a pair of elephants and that they trumpeted loudly at you whenever you
did something that they didn't want you to do.  Worse, imagine that they
swatted you "gently but firmly" with their large trunks whenever you did
something that they didn't want you to do.  They would probably consider
their discipline to be gentle, under their elephant standards, but *%$@,
is that trunk big and %&*@, does that trunk hurt!  And even worse, imagine
that they disciplined you (for instance) for using your hands to pick up
things instead of using your trunk.  Granted, you don't have a trunk, but
you belong to elephants now and you should do what the elephants want.
(His analogy here was that pets use their mouths a lot, and people just
don't like that.)  And even worse than all that, you can't speak
Elephant-ese to remind your parents that you're not an elephant.  (Plus,
you can't talk back to your parents -- heh heh.)
 
Anyway, I just thought this was a neat thought, especially in light of the
recent nose-thumping debate.  He is not suggesting that people shouldn't
discipline their pets, but just that a little empathy now and then helps
put things in perspective.  For instance, we love the recent posts about
people using their own mouths to scruff their ferrets to clip nails and
things like that.  Maybe part of being a ferret dad or mom is meeting them
part of the way.
 
[HA]
[Posted in FML issue 2654]