First-We all grow a lot more personally by trying to understand people rather than judging them.

Then-People who treat animals like humans are people who cannot cope with complexities of human relationships. People who think their cat gives them what they need for companionship are probably right, because they are so underdeveloped emotionally.

I don't know how this author can understand my love of my dog if she is bringing a metric shit ton of prejudice beforehand. I think I cope with most human relationships ok. My dog gives me love every day (though the son of a bitch isn't strictly faithful as he gives love to most everyone). Now my dog isn't a cat, but the contempt displayed in the authors disregard of people's love for animals and the comfort they can bring is disturbing. Ever spent much time in a retirement home that allowed pets? I remember seeing a smile on an old mans face while he was caressing a dog. That is enough for me to dismiss this author as carrying a strange crusade. I don't get it.

The above quibble aside, I don't think there's a right answer about the life of the one cat. Trying to put myself in her shoes, I don't have an immediate answer on what I would do. It's hard for me to do that though because I try to be frugal and to me having more than one pet is a lot of expenses, and with possible vet bills it can be really expensive.

To make a comparable morality choice tale for me It would be hard to put a price tag on my dog. If he was sick and I could possibly prolong his life for a few months by an expensive operation that I really can't afford would I do it? I don't know.

I do know if someone ever killed my dog that person wouldn't be among the living very long. If I had any say in the matter anyhow.

meh, the author might be a little harsh in saying that people who think animals are like people are underdeveloped and all that.

But just a little. Frankly I've met people who would put dumb animals on par with humans. And every one of them has struck me as being emotionally warped.

So I think I get where the author is coming from.

For a good movie that depicts a beast of burden (aka donkey) from a farm as a saint that is persecuted watch "Au Hasard Balthazar". It's French but a masterpiece by Bresson about the dignity gained by enduring suffering. Part of the criterion collection. Sorry about the triple post but I keep thinking about this dumb crap on a so far sleepless night. Careful about the movie, it could make you cry.

The problem was that the other cats and the dog started eating the expensive special food and that made it expensive and because of that, she had the cat killed.....
talk about being too lazy to find a simple solution and justifying it with some rambling crap about farm animals and context and culture and this part of the world....
seriously, if everyone were as lazy as this woman, we would have no technology at all, just a simple solution of culling even humans or living without any facilities at all and we would still be living in the stone age. Humans have progressed because of trying to find solutions that balance conflicting objectives and succeeding at it and not throwing in the towel at the first sign of the slightest problem which is what this woman has done.

Damn it all. I feel like I have some explaining to do even if nobody asks.

I brought up the movie above because I thought of anthropomorphism, which the author sort of gets at. There are different kinds, from entertainment like Disney with Bambi and types such as Timothy Treadwells deadly love affair with bears (see "grizzly man" for a brilliant portrait of a mans life depicted from his own recording of his self). And there are people who see different personalities in their pets. I don't get what's wrong with this. Pets are pets and wild animals are wild and farm animals are raised typically with a utilitarian purpose. Whats my point. I swear I thought I started out with one. Oh, equating people who love animals to the exclusion of a human social life as being warped. Well, ok. But I think such people are deserving more of pity than contempt. Writer strikes me as warped herself.

Went and looked at the article. This lady is seriously messed up in the head.

The crystals are very common in male cats. It's treatable. I have a cat that was diagnosed with it. After a little research into the expensive prescription food the vet wants you to buy, I found that there are plenty of grocery store brands that do exactly the same thing. Currently I buy Purina Urinary Tract Health. It's $25 for an enormous bag that lasts for months. Since buying that, my cat doesn't have the crystals.

Even if she opted to use the unnecessarily expensive prescription food (C/D or R/D) there is a very simple solution to the feeding problem. Put the cat in a separate room with the prescription food. Put the other animals in a separate room with the normal food. Wait until animals are done eating. Open the door. And just don't let the indoor animals free-feed.

Animals aren't on par with humans, I'll fully agree with that, but to wait until an animal you care for is in miserable pain before taking it to the vet, then having it make a recovery, then killing it anyway just to not have to deal with what amounts to a minor hassle, is kind of demented. Especially with kids involved.

Also, Holy Christ. Drowning cats is never okay.

"People who treat animals like humans are people who cannot cope with complexities of human relationships. People who think their cat gives them what they need for companionship are probably right, because they are so underdeveloped emotionally."

That does seem like a bit of a stretch, although given the comments on the two blog posts, I can kind of understand it.

I sympathise with her. A decision like this isn't easy. And obviously she was affected enough to care. But

The problem is we feed twenty barn cats. And two house cats. Three house cats if you count the outside cat that we can’t keep outside. And four if you count the dog, who wont’ stop eating the cat food.

Don't take on more than you can handle then.

So all the animals were eating the very expensive medical cat food

Sheesh. I've done chemotherapy for two cats, including learning to do twice daily subcutaneous injections. Operations and recovery. Was it worth it? Yes, to me - both of them got a year more of happy life. Separate feeding arrangements shouldn't be that fucking hard.

People who treat animals like humans are people who cannot cope with complexities of human relationships. People who think their cat gives them what they need for companionship are probably right, because they are so underdeveloped emotionally.

This just makes my blood boil. You want to justify your decision Penelope, go right ahead - but try not to do it by setting yourself up as superior to others. Stick with you couldn't afford it, ok? That I could understand.

An acquaintance of mine has a dog and cat that she speaks of as if they are her children and at times compares them to the children of friends. She took down a post on FaceBook because someone made a joke about her dog and she felt it was disrespectful to her "daughter." I'm an animal lover and treated my pets very well, but think my acquaintance does fit the author's description very well.

On the other hand, her bizarre treatment of her pets isn't hurting me or anyone else but herself, so who am I to judge?

One could live and let live, but I'm going to be as judgemental as she is.

If you want to discover who your best friend really is: lock your wife and your dog both in the trunk of your car. Come back in two hours and open the trunk. Note which one is glad to see you.

Penelope Trunk makes it a habit to

(a) kill living things (cats, her two unborn children, etc.) that pose slight difficulties to her lifestyle [ http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/06/17/whats-the-connection-between-abortions-and-careers/ ]

(b) then blog about it

To call her a "link wh*re" is to only scrape the surface of the defects in her character.

You can spay/neuter farm cats, ya' know. And keeping food seperate isn't that big a deal.

I am not a cat person. I'm allergic to them, and while I don't dislike cats, I don't really care for them, either. But I would never DROWN a cat.

We've spend thousands on our dogs over the years. During the last year my Great Dane was alive, we were spending about $400 a month just in medication, and that was after the several-days-worth of emergency vet bills after his heart failed. From then on, he had his own cardiologist. Then, there was the time the great dane bit the chihuahua, and the little guy ended up with with subcutenous emphasema (puffed up like a balloon with air under his skin). That was expensive, too.

Of course, there's a difference our relationships with pets vs. livestock animals... Anywho, I don't think I'd like this lady if I met her at a party. She seems like one of those incredibly fucked up people who is really intent on telling you what you're doing wrong.

They're work cats...fairly replaceable...I honestly do not care. Of course I wouldn't enjoy eating "free range cat"...fairly gamey...grain fed would be tastier....

Grizzly Man "a brilliant portrait of a mans life depicted from his own recording of his self" is also hilarious if you believe in survival of the fittest or at the very least people putting themselves in dangerous situations and nature taking its course. SPOILER ALERT! they eat him.

This clown shoe goes to visit the grizzly bears in Alaska more than a dozen times and lives amongst the grizzlies who left him alone at the time "I guess they thought he was retarded or something"...last trip he brings his girlfriend (who was menstruating and probably showed fear) so there's the smell of blood and fear in the air and the grizzlies ate them.

That lady is a stupid bitch. Really, you can't figure out a solution, so the cat has to die. The cat is better off dead than suffering, but what is this woman doing with so many animals she can't afford?

I actually use that expensive vet food made for urinary crystals (hills C/D) and have four cats that all eat it (so, same number of mouths to feed that she was complaining about). A big bag is around $40 and lasts a couple of months. I'm sorry, but if $20 a month for cat food is too expensive.. you shouldn't own the cats.

Ltw says "Don't take on more than you can handle then" I couldn't agree more. Why on earth would anyone need 20 barn cats? It is sad that a cat had to die because this family didn't practice self restraint earlier and limit the animals to ones they wanted to take care of.

However, I am grateful that, after they chose to no longer take care of the cat, they did the responsible thing and had it put down humanely instead of dumping it off in the "wild" like some of the most irresponsible cat owners do. There is no "natural habitat" for a house cat in North America. Those animals in the "wild" suffer from diseases, get hit by cars, generally have miserable lives, all while having a serious negative impact on native wildlife. They also can be a huge pain in the butt for innocent neighbors who are then put in the position where they have to trap them and figure out what to do with them. As you may be able to tell, I once had a neighbor who "loved cats" so she had 20 plus "barn cats" that she didn't get fixed or provide adequate medical care for and who all used my vegetable garden as a litter box. Who doesn't love a little toxoplasmosis with your tomatoes?

So to the author I would say "thanks for not making your (self inflicted) problem everyone else's problem."

Cats aside, is anyone else enjoying the irony of a person with Asperger's Syndrome making blanket statements about the inability of others to cope with human relationships? A quick browse through some of her posts concerning family and her own mental and emotional past unearths some serious pot-kettle issues.

And yeah, if you can't be bothered to meet your pet's needs, you probably should forgo acquiring pets as a matter of course. And if you don't want your ass handed to you in a public forum, refrain from posting about euthanizing a cat as "treatment" for a very treatable condition. The Internet is batshit for cats, and you won't escape unscathed.

I'm not impressed. And I am the kind of person who would not get chemo for their pet (chemo is miserable enough for a human who knows why they're suffering). She presents a false choice: everyone eats the pricey food or the sick cat eats the food that causes him problems. There are other options (don't free feed the cats, train your fucking dog or put the food on a table/ dryer, etc)

And I'm very not impressed with "her Farmer." The minimum standards for Whole Foods tier 1 is not very high. The tier 1 standards are why I would choose a local farm over a CAFO (no de-beaking or de-horning, room to move, and access to vegetation). Providing these things for an animal is a sign that you value the animal on its terms, not as a person.

And two abortions? Good god. One means you made a mistake and it's an abomination that it had to happen but you can make a case that it's for the greater good/ more respnosibility. Two is fucking irresponsible and a sign that your a goddamned idiot with no sense of cause and effect.

You're not supposed to feed a barn cat. They are supposed to catch their own food. That's the whole idea. If you feed them, they won't hunt. Which brings up something I wanted to send to Abersouth, which I think he gets, but I thought it was worth saying: There's a difference between pets and animals being raised for a purpose. We can love and cherish our pets while realizing that working animals have a job to do. There's no inherent contradiction in that.

Of course, we still have a responsibility to treat the working animals humanely, keep them in reasonably good health to the extent that we can, and not inflict unnecessary pain on them. On a farm, you don't necessarily have the time and resources to treat a seriously ill animal; you can't expend a bunch of time on one to the detriment of all the others. Depending on the seriousness of the illness, the most humane thing may be to put them down. Even if the animal is a pet. It isn't particularly ethical for us to keep alive an animal who is terminally ill and in serious pain, just for our own gratification. I think that's the point that Trunk was trying to get at, even if she illustrated it with a poor example.

(Oh, and: 20 barn cats? That's way too many. Unless the barn is enormous, two or three cats is sufficient.)

Wow, Amy. You reached into the Confusion Box and pulled out a winner!

What an amazing read. I thought people like this were pushed out to sea on an ice floe.

This is the woman who tweeted her miscarriage! I don't believe shre had a cat. She'll do anything for attention! And pity this poor guy she's glommed onto.

have you read all her stuff KateC? I think you should see it and realize that there is a lot more to this story... once you know her background more, maybe things will make more sense... or not, perhaps. Many people have problems dealing with someone who is so brutally honest about everything, sometimes that light is just to bright.

I find it creepy. And her creepy. Why in the fuck would you HAVE that many cats?? I had a male cat get urinary crystals. It was expensive to treat him through the crisis, but afterwards? The special pee food by purina was maybe $5 a bag, as opposed to maybe $3 a bag for store brand regular. So I simply am not buying the expensive food argument. Plus plenty of rescues would have taken him. What the dumb bitch needs to do is catch neuter release those barn cats.

I wish we could put her freaky ass to sleep. The world would be a better place. And yes I DID read her stuff.

Ugh, yuk! I think what I find most ludicrous is that the tag line for her blog is something like, "advice at the crossroads between work and life"....Good GOD, I would not listen to any twisted blather issuing from her pie hole.

I too have lived on a farm, but nothing about livestock, vermin or tough decisions related to "farming" EVER excused me from being responsible, resourceful or humane.

My cat is 11 years old and had the same issue, yes he was in the cat hospital a few days, yes I have fed him high quality food since and he is fine. I also have a horse, that has "corrective" shoes that help keep him comfortable and sound.

I feel like a need a handi-wipe for my brain after reading her blog.

Barn cats aren't pets, they're not even livestock. They're more like crows or woodchucks - tolerable up to a point, after which they're pests that need managing. Catching and neutering barn cats is expensive, and any shelter that accepts them - or the sick cat - would euthanize them immediately. She would have to lock up the sick cat with the medical cat food to keep other animals from the food and the cat from other food. Not practical, esp. if the sick cat is used to having free run and wants to get out. She did the right thing.

I love my cat. I prefer to have few, in-depth friendships as opposed to many superficial ones. I cope just fine. I never considered my cat a person. However, she's good a good companion (even if she is about useless when it comes to controlling the rodent population). Doesn't mean I consider her a "person" or an "equal."

“If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.”

-- St. Francis of Assisi

@ momof4. I agree with the catch and neuter part of your post, but disagree with the release part. The majority of those animals either need to be taken to a home where someone cares for them properly or they need to be humanely put to sleep. As Cousin Dave points out, it is crazy to have 20 barn cats. This is entirely too many cats in one area. Stopping them from breeding is a necessary step but not sufficient. I would prefer that someone found them an actual home where they were properly cared for (if they already haven't contracted one of the incurable infectious diseases that are common among feral cats), but short of that it is better for everyone (cats included) if they are humanely put to sleep. It was irresponsible to let the situation get to this point so now someone needs to step up and correct the problem before it becomes a problem for the neighbors of these people.

What bleeding heart nonsense. When an animal becomes a pest, you whack them. Who goes around moping about snapping the necks of mice with traps? Good heavens; if you have a cat problem, you shoot the damn cats.

(The east coast has a deer problem. Everyone comes up with weird solutions exception the obvious--allow more hunting. I don't like venison, but know many people who do.)

What, no one's read Jonathan Franzen's Freedom and learned about the havoc cats are wreaking on the native songbird population in North America?!

Look, I don't have any pets myself, and no plans to get one. I have had them. I have had to have them put to sleep. I loved my pets and I like animals but I don't think anyone would ever accuse me of confusing animal affection with people affection.

But I am a big believer in personal responsibility and responsibility towards those things you chose to have that are dependent on you (see: kids and animals). Sure, as a pet owner you get to make those decisions (not so much as a parent, as it turns out), and I often believe that vets and owners err way too much on the side of keeping animals alive at any price, especially when they're sick and suffering and aren't going to get better.

But. But! If you can't afford the pet, don't have the pet. This woman shouldn't have pets if she can't afford even the basics of their care, and it doesn't look like she put any effort into finding alternative treatments like the other commenters here mentioned.

Urinary crystals are pretty common among housecats, and I think it's one of the illnesses you sign onto deal with when you get an animal, unlike terminal illnesses where you don't have many options aside from prolonging or ending the animal's pain.

I'm not really sure where she makes the jump from 'spending a little more on special food for the cat' to slamming people who substitute their relationships with animals for ones with people.

And, if you are, by your own admission, not a cat person (and it seems, not much of a pet person), why on earth would you have them?

@Joe. Unfortunately in some areas you could be arrested and jailed for shooting your neighbor's vicious, diseased and starving "pet" cats (I believe under animal cruelty laws), even when they are destroying your property. In fact, in some cities feral cat colonies are actually being supported by tax dollars. The people who support these programs think that you should spend your money to protect your property by installing and upkeeping things like motion activated sprinklers to gently shoo the animals away if you would prefer not to have every surface of your property covered in cat crap.

"We all grow a lot more personally by trying to understand people rather than judging them."

"People who think their cat gives them what they need for companionship are probably right, because they are so underdeveloped emotionally."

Hmm...no personal growth for Penelope today!

Sorry but it's the truth. People who treat animals like humans are people who cannot cope with complexities of human relationships. People who think their cat gives them what they need for companionship are probably right, because they are so underdeveloped emotionally

Myopic and obstuse. A waste of 269 characters. Noise.

Years ago I had a male cat who developed those crystals. I don't remember the food being as cheap as some on here say. I remember it being expensive as hell but I did buy it because I did love the cat. He died a few years later from cancer. I wonder if its more common now and that's why everyone is saying the food is so cheap. I do remember it being pretty pricey.

"Myopic and obstuse. A waste of 269 characters. Noise."

Real irony, invisible to the subject(s):

Woman commenting, in some distress, about persons who cannot relate to people as well as cats is confirmed to be correct by the very words of those people. One of which bothers to count characters!

The distress of an animal is more important than that of a person, because we expect the person to suck it up and get on with it.

But only in approved ways.

-----

I hope those of you who are cat people - I have two - do not let them out. Kitty is a sport killer, and responsible for more death of native species than your appreciation of furry cuddliness will admit.

I've never cried at a human's funeral. I still tear up when I think of the dogs I have had to put down over the years. Ape, Hoggle, Ursula, Heidi- when Wally's time comes I will be in rehab for a month.

@Radwaste "I hope those of you who are cat people - I have two - do not let them out."

Rad, If I had two cat people I'd send them out on errands all the time!

Maybe I'm missing something being a city (ok, suburbs) boy, but I would think that "Barn" cats would essentially feed themselves. Living off mice, rats, birds, whatever. Early on reading the article, I saw that the real problem was the number of animals too.

I'm not a cat person, I'm a dog person. I have 1 dog, not a whole litter running around. My dog is my companion but by no means is she a substitute for human contact of course. I've spent a good chunk of change over the years on vet bills. I don't think I'd do chemo for cancer though. My parents did that for a dog and while it did extend her life about 14 months, she was never the same and was essentially always miserable on the meds. I'd rather spend a last few good days with the dog then put her out of any misery. My mom won't ever put another dog through chemo after the previous time either.

Some people put animals to sleep, not to alleviate the animal's suffering, but for their own comfort and convenience.

Likewise, some people delay putting an animal to sleep, even though it is suffering, because they cannot bear to be parted from it.

In the end, you have to get over yourself and do the Right thing. If this lesson somehow fails to make us more emotionally developed in our relationships with other humans, I don't see how.

"Here are things I thought were patently wrong before I lived on the farm...Peeing on the front lawn."

For animals or people?

"The Farmer - my farmer - absolutely loves his animals and he will spend all night in a rain storm to keep one alive for one more day. But he doesn't even meet the first standard--the bottom rung--with Whole Foods."

The first step is not keeping livestock in cages. All the five steps are here: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/meat/welfare.php

"Now that I live on a farm, I see both sides of everything. People are not morally depraved. They are living in the context of their own community. We all grow a lot more personally by trying to understand people rather than judging them. It's no easy task, though."

Thank you, Oliver Wendell Holmes.

"People who treat animals like humans are people who cannot cope with complexities of human relationships. People who think their cat gives them what they need for companionship are probably right, because they are so underdeveloped emotionally."

Thank you for the lesson in rationalization.

And another thing. If having 20 cats doesn't make you a cat person, I'm afraid I don't know what does.

She's horrible. I grew up on a cattle ranch. She's been on is poor guy's farm for about year, and is going to plunge him into bankruptcy, mark my words. Her resume is bogus, her start-ups are bogus and her post is nothing but Google-bait.

"I've never cried at a human's funeral. I still tear up when I think of the dogs I have had to put down over the years. Ape, Hoggle, Ursula, Heidi- when Wally's time comes I will be in rehab for a month."

And so, Penelope is right, again. Animals mean more to some people than people do.

Hey - it just is.

This is what I hear... "I thought I knew it all and that all these people were beneath me. I then discovered I was wrong about some things, so I had what vaguely resembles a personal growth experience, but then I imagined that to be uniquely special and I imagine advanced me intellectually beyond anyone else ever, and so I still managed to come out the other side sounding like a sanctimonious know-it-all who just looks down on others in other ways instead, oh I'm so superior to you if you like your cat" ... what an annoying person. She acts like she's been through really special and unique experiences just for living on a farm, then she imagines she has almost uniquely discovered supposedly deep things about the nature of morality, when in fact she is spouting nonsense and she needs to read up a bit on the history of philosophy of ethics and morality, many thinkers have gone far far further already - if she could see past her own ego she might be able to see it but it seems to me it's blocking her vision.

She's nutty, but my sweet boyfriend works at the local SPCA, and through his job I've met a ton of people who fit her description exactly - irrationally nuts about animals and unable to connect in healthy ways with people. (Interestingly, I think they also spend a lot of time on blogs; I think these behaviors are related....)

If you feed them, they won't hunt.

Tell that to my cats! They, despite being well fed, hunt vermin for sport all the time. This is not uncommon in cats, they're pretty much little furry killing machines. I've seen both of them eat breakfast, go outside, and come in 5 minutes later with a mouse. It depends on the cat and its temperament of course.

They sometimes partly eat their kills, but because they're used to a nice processed pet food diet they tend to vomit. Of course, cats will vomit at the slightest provocation anyway.

I agree that working cats should be underfed at least so they get used to supplying most of their own food.

Housecats are almost unique in that they will hunt whether hungry or not. They also have the largest range of prey of any predator. Pretty much anything that moves that is smaller than the individual cat. Our outdoor cat (used to be a stray, now is fixed and vac'd and fed) can eat a rat in 5 mins flat.

My cat is way too cool to chase mice. I should have named him Brian Setzer.

One of her blog comments:

"... because our farm is a mix of city people and country people — people with vastly different sets of experiences — moral decisions are often more complex on our farm than other farms"

But once you step back over the property line, standard flawed normal boring American morals apply. Sweet! Within my property lines gravity has been reduced by 15%. Because I say so!

Morals are subjective Gog, the physical laws of the universe are not

"Morals are subjective Gog, the physical laws of the universe are not"

Very true.