Of mice and men

[petronia]

You find a goodly number of people who own a cat - it's usually a cat - that came in off the street: an abandoned kitten or a stray that regular mealtimes turned into an 'outside cat'. Then there are the people who attract strays and orphans somehow, so that they end up with five or six. Depending on circumstances, that might constitute five or six trips to the local SPCA. Different people muster up differing levels of commitment, apart from the basic decency implicit in preventing animals from dying of starvation or exposure.

I don't attract cats. I've never owned a cat, though I'm quite fond of them. I have been a bird owner, however, and apparently in the eyes of Providence this qualifies me as a bird rescuer. I've been to the SPCA so often with wild birds that I've learnt the proper one-hand hold for them. I also have something of a sideline in small rodents, like hamsters or mice. People are *incredibly* stupid with small rodents. I mean all right, they're a little harder to anthropomorphise than cats or dogs, aren't they, but what sort of git abandons a hamster in the subway station? A tame mouse in the mall? Even if the animals were able to instinctively crawl into the walls and burrow a home for themselves - which I'm not at all certain they are - does the act of purposefully infesting public buildings with rodents not involve a certain, I dunno, *irresponsibility*?

There's no help for some people. None at all. >__

Comments

[sdavis.livejournal.com]

You'd think the purchase of an animal implied a commitment of sorts, but apparently a great many people see no injustice in dumping an inbred, malnourished gerbil down a sewer grate. It's absolutely despicable. There's a constant threat of spreading diseases or introducing strange pests to an area, all because people can't acquire the wit to realize that a pet requires a level of responsibility.

On their durability, you're right to be uncertain: many rodents are extremely susceptible to dehydration and rhespiratory infections; a slight, cool breeze can kill certain African species, for instance. Few have the slimmest chance of survival in a mall, subway, or anywhere outside the house or their native habitats. When they do survive, that in itself is problematic, as you noted.