Keeping your pet does not prove that you love them.
On August 12, New York Magazine’s The Cut published an essay from an anonymous author as part of its “exploration of the ethics of pet ownership.” The essay “Why Did I Stop Loving My Cat When I Had a Baby?” has understandably caused outrage. I cried the first time I read the essay—not because I was shocked at this woman’s description of the treatment of her cat—but because I know this kind of treatment is far too common.
I won’t link the article here because I don’t recommend reading it. It is both disturbing and heartbreaking. It also sits behind a paywall. Part of me wonders if The Cut published this essay as clickbait because I simply do not believe that they thought publishing this would go well for them. No doubt, it has brought them a lot of traffic. As a trigger warning, I will summarise the essay and include quotes from it in this post. So you won’t have to give money to The Cut to know what I’m talking about.
The essay is written by an anonymous mother, who opens the essay by recalling her rage at seeing a little dog humping his owner, who is nursing her newborn, at the park. Anonymous then explains how she began to hate her cat, Lucky, almost immediately after giving birth to her baby. Sadly, Anonymous is not the only person to feel this way; many disturbing stories can be found on social media and in Reddit threads like this one: “I’ve been hating my dog since I gave birth.” Each story like this one brings forth commenters who are shocked and disturbed, but also a troubling number of people who have similar stories.
Unfortunately for Lucky, her owner’s hatred quickly morphed from sentiment into actual neglect. Anonymous recounts how she regularly neglected to offer food and water to Lucky, forcing her to eat toxic houseplants and drink from the toilet. When Lucky vomited on her bra, she threw it at her head. She admits to leaving her apartment window open and hoping that Lucky would jump out, knowing she would likely not survive outside the apartment. The author cheekily refers to this as “voluntary catslaughter,” how witty! She describes the change in Lucky’s personality and how she became depressed. When Anonymous switched Lucky from wet food to only dry food, she became obese and was no longer able or willing to groom herself—a stark contrast to when Anonymous once cherished Lucky and spent hours brushing her.
In this essay, the author shows only a flicker of remorse, reduced to two sentences. One of them is: “If I treated a human the way I treated my cat, I would be in prison for years.” I bolded that because, YAH, YOU’RE RIGHT GIRL!
Most disturbingly, and what has people so upset is how Anonymous concluded the essay: “I haven’t fallen back in love with Lucky, but it could still happen. I’ll shut the windows until then.” (This isn’t a college essay, girly! You just admitted to everyone that you’ve been grossly neglecting your cat!) The author leaves us without assurance that she is no longer abusing Lucky or has any intentions of finding her the home that she deserves.
After being inundated with comments on Twitter and Instagram, all ignored, New York Magazine finally posted a statement addressing the essay on Sept 7. In the statement, editor-in-chief David Haskell insufficiently assured readers of Lucky’s well-being and stated that they do not condone harm to animals. Not surprisingly, this convinces absolutely no one that the cat is okay, and pet lovers across TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter are still riled up.
I think the way New York Mag has handled this is pretty disgusting. As is the fact that they paid a writer who will likely never be held accountable for this disturbing account of animal abuse. Ironically, as mentioned above, they are calling this part of “a package exploring the ethics of pet ownership.” I think we’ve discovered that New York Mag is displaying a significant lack of ethics on this front. While I do agree with their statement that harassment and threats towards the staff are unacceptable, The Cut absolutely deserves to be held accountable by their readers and subscribers. It’s embarrassing for them to think otherwise.
While I do think it’s warranted, I’m always surprised when something like this causes such a big reaction. That’s because people who work with pets, like those who work in vet med or animal rescue, know how common this is. I don’t mean the specific phenomena of pet owners neglecting their pets after having a baby, but an overall disconnect between pet ownership and sufficient pet care. It shouldn’t need to be said, but there is no situation or mental illness that justifies neglect or abuse of animals. American culture, in general, creates a very “it was your choice to have kids, you deal with it” kind of attitude, and there is plenty of resentment from certain groups towards people who choose to remain child-free. But for the record, the majority of new parents I met when I worked in vet med were wonderful pet parents as well — before and after having children.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen pets so obese that they can’t groom themselves or make it through a walk around the block. How many Facebook posts I’ve seen where people refuse to spay their pet because they “want her to have just one litter,” only to let her suffer for hours at home before finally taking her to an ER to be euthanized because they can’t afford a C-section. (“Ask a vet” Facebook groups are absolute nightmares). I remember several instances where pet owners told me they couldn’t treat their pet’s skin or ear infection right now because they had “just enough money for vacation next week.”
So it comes down to two main things, in my opinion. That’s a lack of general education on basic pet care—which includes behavior, health, and basic anatomy—and good old human selfishness. I have been guilty of both of these things as well. Much like the author of that essay, who admits her decision to get a cat in her twenties was out of selfishness, so was my decision to get my dog, Penelope. At the time, I was young and grossly uneducated about caring for a dog (even though I grew up with them), and I was grieving the loss of my dad. I got Penelope from a shitty breeder because I desperately felt the need to care for something to survive my grief. So, I will never fault anyone for getting a pet before they are ready or for the wrong reason. Humans make mistakes. It’s what you do next that separates you from pet owners like Anonymous. More than anything, I wish people understood that refusing to rehome your pet does not prove that you love them.
When people end up with a pet they can not or no longer want to care for, there are two correct choices: find a way to meet their needs or find someone who will. There is so much stigma and hate directed at people who decide to rehome their pets. This is understandable when you consider that millions of pets end up in shelters each year, and far too many never make it out. So, while it’s obviously best not to take on the responsibility of a pet if you’re not able or willing to properly care for them, it’s more important to do what’s best for your pet once they’re in your care, even if that means properly rehoming them. That doesn’t mean dropping them off at a kill shelter or dumping them on the side of the road. I used to find it challenging understand people who rehome their pets. I now understand that people who can make that decision to properly rehome their pets are infinitely more caring than owners like Anonymous.
There is a devastating lack of knowledge about the pets we commonly keep in our homes. Many people come in for their first vet appointment and have no idea what a puppy’s vaccination schedule looks like or how much it will cost them. And by the way, it’s a lot. So many people have no idea that lillies can kill their cats, that their dogs should be on heartworm prevention, or that taking their unvaccinated puppy to a dog park is a terrible idea. Yes, there are even people who are surprised to learn their male pet has nipples.
It’s a helpless feeling to watch people choose euthanasia over surrendering a young pet because they can’t afford to treat an injury or illness. Yet it happens every day, and I’ve always wondered what causes people to make that choice. Is it shame? Is it ego? If I can’t have them, no one can? Is letting them go to someone who can care for them really the worst thing you can do?
Vet staff do their best to care for these pets and to educate owners. Many are overworked and spread thin, and we know that veterinarians face high rates of suicide. It’s often tough for veterinary professionals to reach audiences beyond their clients— content creation is a whole job in itself—yet there are many veterinarians who do make educational content.
Pet owners and future pet owners must understand that unlike many human relationships, relationships with our pets are not transactional. In the essay, Anonymous says, “The cat arrived, in other words, during a period when I was not thinking of the future, which is the whole point of your 20s.” What Anonymous and many other pet owners fail to understand is that the cat did not arrive. The cat, the dog, the bunny, did not magically appear on your doorstep to offer you unconditional love when you were single and lonely in your twenties. Much like a human child does not choose to be born into a family, a dog does not choose to be brought into a family only to be left at a shelter when the kids don’t take him for walks like they said they would. It’s almost as if people forget that we (humans) domesticated these animals, and so, as a society, we are responsible for caring for them. Sadly, what that currently looks like is hundreds of thousands of pets being euthanized each year because we don’t know what else to do with them.
So now, thanks to The Cut, we are left in a helpless position with the anonymous story of Lucky. A story that sadly has and will replay itself over and over again. While it’s often a disservice to our pets to humanize them, they do deserve the same respect and level of care as any human. With the number of comments justifying Anonymous’s treatment of her cat, the many troubling threads on Reddit, and the fact that The Cut thought this essay was relatable enough to publish, it’s clear that a massive shift needs to be made by society on the way we see pets. What if, in that essay, Lucky was a human child?
All this to say, I’m sad.
Sad, as a human, that some of us see nothing wrong with treating our pets like this—We truly don’t deserve them. Sad, as an aspiring writer, that The Cut would publish an admission of abuse and then turn off comments when readers react—because wtf?