(JP) Having a pet is an awesome responsibility

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Having a pet is an awesome responsibility

 

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200702120087.html

 

Having a pet is an awesome responsibility

02/12/2007

 

When the physicist and essayist Torahiko Terada

(1878-1935) lost Mike (pronounced Me-kay), his pet

calico cat, he composed a song for children. It went:

" Snow is falling on Mike's grave/ Flurries keep

dancing at a little window/ The red quilt draped over

the kotatsu (heater table)/ Looks forlorn because Mike

isn't here anymore. "

 

Terada later wondered in an essay why even mourning

could be sweet and pleasant when it was for a cat. The

reason, he offered, is that unlike with a human whose

death one mourns, " there is no bitter aftertaste

whatsoever " in one's memories of a cat. " And that is

because you never heard your cat speak human words in

its life, " he concluded.

 

The cat that was loved by Terada was fortunate indeed.

But there is nothing but bitter aftertaste when one

thinks of the numerous " wordless " cats and dogs who

are put to death by gassing.

 

In Tokushima, a dog recently became national news when

it was rescued and adopted after being stranded for

days on a sheer cliff. But behind this heart-warming

story with a happy ending, hundreds of thousands of

cats and dogs are " put down " around the nation every

year. The numbers in fiscal 2004 were 90,000 for dogs

and 240,000 for cats.

 

Four years ago, a miracle occurred in St. Louis,

Missouri. A dog, which had been sent to the gas

chamber at a local animal control center, somehow

survived. When the chamber door was opened, all seven

other canines were dead, but this mutt alone was

standing and wagging its tail.

 

The animal control officer in charge, whom I

interviewed by phone at the time, said he could not

bring himself to shut the door and try to gas this dog

again.

 

Another man in St. Louis, an animal shelter operator,

was overcome by emotion as he told me this incident

had to be a message from the animals to heartless

humans.

 

Terada's Mike once had a litter of four kittens, and

he went out of his way to find loving homes for the

newcomers. As each was being given away, Terada

recalled, he felt like a " father who had just married

off his daughter. "

 

Humans must be responsible if they want nothing but

fond memories of their deceased four-legged family

members.

 

--The Asahi Shimbun, Feb. 4(IHT/Asahi: February

12,2007)