Anybody who’s read this blog with any regularity probably already knows how much I love animals. My two pugs, who died over this past year, were my whole world and I miss them every day.
But it’s not just my own pets that I loved. I’m crazy about pretty much all animals.
I’m that weirdo crying in the office over some sappy video where a crippled dachshund gets a new lease on life when somebody donates one of those wheelie things.
I watch all the silly videos: the clumsy cats falling off tables or trying to squash themselves into too-small boxes, birds talking like people or dancing to hip-hop tunes, dogs barking along with the radio. I love them all.
What I hate? Are those horrible commercials and posts on social media about animal cruelty, like that famous one—you know it: the one with the Sarah McLachlan song that always seems to pop up out of nowhere when you’re trying to enjoy a nice, mindless episode of cheesy reality TV.
Here’s the thing: Even a quick glimpse of one of those anti-cruelty ads absolutely scars an overly sensitive animal lover like me, so much so that I keep seeing even the most fleeting image over and over and over in my mind for days, weeks, even years after the fact.
What the people who post these things seem not to realize is that I’m already on their side. Making ME feel horrible isn’t helping the cause; it’s only piling a little human on top of what the animals are already suffering.
It has ZERO effect on the kind of bastard who would willingly harm an animal. In fact, I can’t help but think that those kinds of awful images might almost serve as “cruelty porn” for people who think it’s cool to treat animals badly.
Basically, those ads change nobody’s mind and actually make things worse.
So please, I’m begging you: Stop putting these things up in places I can’t avoid—like at random in my Facebook feed or halfway through the rerun of Restaurant: Impossible I’m watching while doing my best to relax for once in my life.
I promise, I’ll send you all my money to help prevent cruelty to animals if you just promise to stop engaging in cruelty to ME first.
Do we have a deal?
