Students deserve flunking marks for pet care skills
Alisha Cowan
Issue date: 3/28/07 Section: Opinion
- Page 1 of 1
There are seven days in a week. For the typical college student, maybe two days are spent studying, one day is spent resting and the remaining four days are spent partying.
Which one of these days is spent properly taking care of your pet?
If you drive down almost any block on Western Illinois University's campus, chained-up dogs and filthy cats can be seen every couple of houses. The cats at least have freedom of movement, but the dogs, forced to withstand pouring rain, freezing snow or blazing heat, are left carelessly tied up to old, rotting trees or rusted poles to suffer outside for most of the hours in a day.
Here's a thought: If you can't take care of an animal, don't go out and purchase one. Quite frankly, the pets are better off staying in an animal shelter than with an irresponsible college student.
Save the 80 bucks it takes to pay for a pet at the McDonough County Animal Shelter and keep it for a time when you are prepared to not just look at that cute, cuddly, irresistible face but to actually take care of it. Of course, kittens and puppies are adorable, and every time you walk into Pet Connection or Macomb Petland on the Square you are tempted to take one home. The animals' job is to "woo" you with sad puppy eyes, eagerly wagging tales or purrs of affection.
With stories roaming around campus - "Oh yeah, my friend had a puppy, and he was never home to watch it," or "The only time my friend took her dog for a walk was when she came home drunk on Saturday nights" - one can really question the ethics of many Western students.
According to animalshelter.org, pets need to be exercised to exert energy, they need to be groomed and, last but not least, they need to be trained and simply cared for. For some this may be a wake-up call, but to everyone else around the world, it is common sense. No Web site should be needed to inform owners about how to treat a helpless animal.
One call to the McDonough County Animal Shelter shed some positive light on the ill treatment of pets by students, due to the fact that recently more local pets than student pets have been returned to the shelter. The downside is that this new statistic probably should be the other way around, or at least equal, because students may not be returning pets because they can't muster up enough common sense to give the neglected animal back.
Which one of these days is spent properly taking care of your pet?
If you drive down almost any block on Western Illinois University's campus, chained-up dogs and filthy cats can be seen every couple of houses. The cats at least have freedom of movement, but the dogs, forced to withstand pouring rain, freezing snow or blazing heat, are left carelessly tied up to old, rotting trees or rusted poles to suffer outside for most of the hours in a day.
Here's a thought: If you can't take care of an animal, don't go out and purchase one. Quite frankly, the pets are better off staying in an animal shelter than with an irresponsible college student.
Save the 80 bucks it takes to pay for a pet at the McDonough County Animal Shelter and keep it for a time when you are prepared to not just look at that cute, cuddly, irresistible face but to actually take care of it. Of course, kittens and puppies are adorable, and every time you walk into Pet Connection or Macomb Petland on the Square you are tempted to take one home. The animals' job is to "woo" you with sad puppy eyes, eagerly wagging tales or purrs of affection.
With stories roaming around campus - "Oh yeah, my friend had a puppy, and he was never home to watch it," or "The only time my friend took her dog for a walk was when she came home drunk on Saturday nights" - one can really question the ethics of many Western students.
According to animalshelter.org, pets need to be exercised to exert energy, they need to be groomed and, last but not least, they need to be trained and simply cared for. For some this may be a wake-up call, but to everyone else around the world, it is common sense. No Web site should be needed to inform owners about how to treat a helpless animal.
One call to the McDonough County Animal Shelter shed some positive light on the ill treatment of pets by students, due to the fact that recently more local pets than student pets have been returned to the shelter. The downside is that this new statistic probably should be the other way around, or at least equal, because students may not be returning pets because they can't muster up enough common sense to give the neglected animal back.
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