Will Your Cat Understand?
Civil disobedience absolutely has its place, but before applying it, one needs to consider all its ramifications. Our society is proud of its heritage of individual free choice, but it's generally agreed that one must not exercise his (or her) free choice if it unduly infringes on another's. I submit that this also includes our pets.
...when you're caught with an illegal animal, that animal will suffer major life-changing experiences completely uncontrollable by you, and completely incomprehensible to it.
The black-market purchase of material goods is a completely different thing from attempting to buy any kind of animal on a black-market basis. If you're caught with an illegal manufactured object, it's confiscated and you may suffer consequences like a fine and/or jail/prison time: the outcome means nothing to the object. But when you're caught with an illegal animal, that animal will suffer major life-changing experiences completely uncontrollable by you, and completely incomprehensible to it.
I live in a ban state, and would love to have an exotic cat... But! The laws of the place where one chooses to live are the laws. Whether they are right (or not), sensible (or not), or entirely enforceable (or not) is completely irrelevant. The fact is, that the government can--at any time, and completely at its whim--enforce them and make us comply with them.
It is TOTALLY (!!) wrong to try to obtain a cat in any way that's against the law*. Not out of simple-minded, unquestioning obedience to the government's edicts, but solely out of consideration for the cat. When you raise a kitten/cub, it bonds strongly to you. It doesn't know or understand anything about laws, government, ownership, or consequences. But you do. If you do acquire a cat illegally, you are deliberately involving that innocent creature with your crime, and exposing it to consequences over which it has no choice, knowledge, or understanding.
What will your cat think when strangers come, grab it by the neck with a catching pole, drag it away, and it finds itself in a cage? ...Seeing only strangers who don't interact with it either as often, or the way its person used to...and who sound, look, and smell different? Never to see, touch, smell, or hear its special person and other animal companions again?
Completely taken away from all that was comforting and familiar to it.
What will happen to its life when that happens? You will understand when the court sends you to jail and confiscates your cat.
But will your cat understand???
If we truly love the cats, we won't do anything to jeopardize the quality of their lives, and trying to sneak them in and keep them illegally is doing that in spades.
--Greg Lyons
2007-02-20
*The language here speaks of government (all levels), but realize that other individuals or groups of individuals can also have similar effects on one's freedom of choice of one's pets. For example, if you're renting, your landlord can have similar arbitrary (and legally enforceable) control over you. If you live with your parents, they can exercise arbitrary control over your living circumstances much like a landlord. And even if you own your own house (depending on your neighborhood), other property owners can sometimes wield legally enforceable power over your choices.
...and in case you're considering getting an illegal cat and trying to keep it hidden...
"All it takes is ONE nasty neighbor, ONE disgruntled employee/coworker, or ONE spiteful former boyfriend/girlfriend...to place ONE solitary call to animal control...
Fast as lightening you will have the authorities on your doorstep who will seize your cat and euthanize him/her.
This legislation IS serious business and while I personally do not agree with it, the states who have outlawed Savannahs and the ownership of other such breeds are NOT messing around, and therefore we, as responsible SV owners can't either.
We have to CHANGE the laws, not work on plotting ideas for how to break them!"
--Cynthia A. King
The Kasbah, LTD.
Used by permission from the Savannah Cat Pets Group e-list; 2007-03-07
