Would you save your pet or a stranger's child?

[NotADailyMailJournalist]

Hello all

Slightly inspired by another thread where posters were surprised that people were more interested in someone's dog than their baby...

If you have a cat/dog and you could only save it or a stranger's child/baby, what would you choose?

For the purposes of this thread, no-one would ever find out you'd been given the choice, so you wouldn't face any consequences.

Thanks

So anyone having a different opinion to you is a freak?🤣

If I had to save you or my dog🐶 it would be a tough one🤔

🐶

@bookworm14 the rage over a hypothetical child is hilarious.

I’ll leave you to it. You’re all nuts.

Nobody has ever given a shit about me, so why should I give a shit about them? I look after number one because nobody else will.

At least they are honest and not virtue signalling

Woof

I'd save the child. Who in their right mind would leave a child to die?

I lost my DDog this weekend and have spent most of it in tears, I’m devastated.

Despite this I would save the child, the dog is still a dog and has what 17 year maximum of life compared to an actual child who has 80 years of life. You’re talking about an actual child.

I value my dog over a strangers life. I’m not a hypocrite - I make this choice every day when I spend my money on vet bills, food and other comforts for my dog and nothing on charities for children that could well save human lives.

Strangers child! Not because I find them interesting 😂

I don’t see it like that. I see it as me vs a stranger. Of course I’m going to look after me and mine first.

👆

My dog. I love her and she is my responsibility. I would save my kids over her but not my own life. An animals life is as important as humans

@sweetkitty I'm so sorry. I am facing the end with my cat sometime soon. Possibly the reason for my ponderings about the value of life etc.

I'm so sorry, it's devastating

It’s not ‘leaving a child to die’. I would be saving what’s most important to me & after my own DD, the next most important to me is my dog - over a strangers child.

Definitely my animals. I love them more than anyone known or unknown so no question whatsoever.
I honestly don’t understand why people believe humans are more important than animals tbh. They certainly aren’t kinder or more honest and trustworthy.
I also believe that adults are equal in value to children as living beings so using the supposedly emotive example of a child in this context means nothing different to me.

The trouble is, we haven’t got enough information about the scenario to make a proper decision. Is the consequence of saving the pet, that the child dies? If you decide to save your pet, on the assumption/in the knowledge that someone else will be able to save the child, that’s one thing. If saving the pet means the child will perish, I really don’t think many people would be able to do that, even those who say they would!

@Blackcats7 in fact humans cause a lot more evil than animals! As well as destroying the planet. I would fully support a plan to allow humans to die out.

This is a very good point however it's not exclusive to pet versus child. We all choose to spend money every day on absolutely unnecessary things that could have been spent on saving or improving a child's life.

Also, research has shown that proximity makes a massive difference in things like this, e.g. people would find it much easier to press a button to kill someone far, far away than to actually lay their hands on someone right in front of them.

Also, wanting to save your pet does not make you a sociopath or a psychopath. I'm very happy to hear that most people would save the child (as I'd want my children to be saved), I don't have pets and these days I don't even like dogs that much anymore but people are not psychopaths for valuing their pets more than anything or anyone else.

Some people might love their pets as much as I love my child and feel a sense of duty to protect their pet as much as I do with ny child.

I'd protect my children at any cost even if it meant having to choose them over a number of children. I think other parents would as well so the argument of minimising the overall amount of hurt does not hold up. I suppose there is a threshold at which it flips but I don't know what that would be.

Let's just hope that none of us are ever in the situation where we actually have to choose. Once you are in a situation such as this there are no good choices and whatever you do will probably haunt you for the rest of your life.

(Though like pp said we do choose to not help kids in need every single day).

If loving my OWN animal over a human I've never met and never will makes me a freak in your opinion, then I'm happy to be called a freak. I also love my dog more than I love anyone I drove past at the bus stop this morning, and more than the woman who lives at the house near mine, because I've known my dog 8 years and I've never met her.

I love SOME humans as much as I love my dog, of course. But not anyone I don't know. I don't think I've ever loved anyone I've never met come to think of it.

It’s not got anything to do with love. No one has suggested that you love the strangers child. Genuinely interesting that that is where your thoughts went though.

Child..

It's not an opinion. It's fact.

A child is meaningful to a larger community of connected people than a dog would be. It will be missed more and grieved for more. |

To not save the child, whoever's child it is - hurts more people.

Letting your own dog die, for the good of the wider community, would be an unselfish act. Fact.

save the child as the child will live longer than my dog.
but if it's an elderly person then maybe I'd choose my dog depending how old my dog is