Maev Kennedy
Pet owners reined in by conduct code
The Guardian Wednesday November 5 2008
On the same day US made history electing their first African-American president, UK
proved to one step forward, establishing a code of conduct for pet owners. I quote from the article linked above
'[...] The codes advise not just on food and housing; readers learn about likes and dislikes. The cat code alone runs to 26 pages and notes that felines need "entertainment and mental stimulation", that given their climbing nature they might need access to high shelves, and that they are solitary by nature.
Dogs, as pack animals, need company, while donkeys "have particular socialisation needs and can ... become ill if separated from a companion."'
Good job animals can't read, so far. Otherwise imagine little kitty dwindling the code in front of your eyes next time you tell it of for climbing on the kitchen sink, and then telling you to get lost and leave it alone in order to second its solitary nature. Or the dog complaining about you always staying in the office and neglecting it...
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
Code of conduct rules: can't behave like an animal with animals anymore
That code has been mentioned at least once in "Do I have news for you"... mostly in the same terms you refer to it :) I wonder how we managed to domesticate cats and dogs thousands of years ago without these rules written down for us... probably we just did like Mozart, who apparently, asked about how much study is needed to write a symphony, answered saying: you need 10 years of this, 5 of that and maybe six or seven of this other bit. When the interviewer asked him how that was possible, given that Mozart had written the first one well before he was 20, he answered: "oh yes, but then I didn't know that"...
Maybe after domesticated we are trying to crank it up a notch and "humanify" them, in a sort of Walt Disney nightmare.
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