Day 9: Something I Feel Strongly About

I feel very strongly that if parents plan to own pets during the time they have children, they need to start teaching their children to interact appropriately with said animals from the start. It seems like anymore, children have no idea how to treat animals. And a lot of that is because the parents go with the idea of “kids will be kids” and they aren’t bothered by the fact that their pets are terrified of the children.


With Chelsea when I was a baby :~) She wasn't a huge fan of people in general, and I'm pretty sure she'd have put me in my place if I was too mean to her. And she was my Mom's favourite child, so I had to be nice to her :~P

I do understand that sometimes kids don’t quite get that they have to be gentler with small animals than they do with other humans. But when kids are hitting animals, or pulling on their tails, etc., etc., seemingly just to scare them, I’m not ok with that.

I asked my Mom recently if I was like that with animals, after scolding yet another small child who was too rough with my animals (and yes, I make it clear that I don’t approve of such things, even to small children). She told me that my siblings and I were never like that. She made it clear that we were to treat animals kindly, and we did. I never recall having any desire to scare the living daylights out of our pets (I made a point of doing that to my sister instead).

My first dog, Stukey. We could do anything with that dog, and she never snapped or did anything bad to us. Her biggest problem was that she was scared of storms and guns and would run to my Grandparents' house if she was frightened. 

I believe that it is important for a child to have pets, and to grow up with close relationships with animals. However, I also believe that kindness must be taught, or else a kid may as well grow up without animals.

And a love for animals that begins at a young age often ends up being a lifelong love :~)