To cringe at my FB friend for posting pictures of her cats wearing poppies?

[Pixiemeat]

With the hashtag "lest we forget" 🙄

To me, it's just trivialising the monumental sacrifices made during WW1, and using it as just an opportunity to post more pictures of her "fur babies" (cringe!!)

I kind of want to post a comment, but know I will look like a snarky cow!!

Saw this on twitter

Cats ( and horses, dogs, pigeons, mules, donkeys and more) went to war, suffered a died alongside humans.
Many of them won Dickon medals ( the "animal VC") for their bravery.
Trench dogs were used to take first aid and provide comfort to the injured on the front line, dogs and cats acted as ratters in the trenches and on board ship.
I don't find a cat with a poppy inappropriate personally.

I posted a gorgeous pic of my pooch wearing a poppy on her harness as we followed the raf cadets to the cenotaph - it was well "liked" 😆 no harm no foul imho.

A lot of the animals were conscripts too. A woman was quoted as saying " I have given my husband and my sons and now I must give my dog too".

And what about the countless young men conscripted? Did they have a choice? Did they want to leave their families at 17 years old to almost certainly die? Or were they also a sacrifice

Of course most of them.didnt have a choice,.and yes they were sacrificed by the government. That is why it is so important that we remember the world wars and all of the men, women, and children, (and animals) who died in them.

"My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori."

And that's exactly my point @ItsAllGoingToBeFine

The PP on here made it sound as though the animals hadn't "made a sacrifice" because they didn't have a choice. But neither did a lot of the young men and we still honour and remember their sacrifice.

Just because it wasn't a choice doesn't mean we shouldn't honour them.

8 million horses.
I’ll wear my purple poppy to remember them thank you very much.

Of course we should honour all who were sacrificed in the war. But Tiddles isn’t honouring them are they?

You should absolutely wear your purple poppy ursula. I don’t think anyone is disputing that many animals suffered greatly in the war. Rather that the animals that are wearing poppies probably don’t give a shit.

Actually hundreds of cats were kept in the trenches to control the rat problem.

I don’t think anyone is disputing that lots of animals were used and killed in wars.

My dogs have all been wearing poppies on their collars this past week. I bought them from Pets at Home with money going to Poppy Scotland - who incidentally sell an awful lot of things with poppies on, including mugs, hoodies, zipper pulls, dog collars, air fresheners, lorry and car poppies and so on, similar to RBL and H4H.

My dog wore a poppy to church today. Lots of dogs died in the war taking messages to the front line.

In the imperial war museum there's a dog collar and blurb about a dog who died at the front - took thousands of messages back and forth.

Dogs, cats, horses - we remember them too.

Most of my friends with dogs have poppies in their collars as a way to support RBL or Poppy Scotland.
My dog looks cute. I support the poppy appeal. I could bore you with statistics of war animals from dogs and cats to camels, canaries and even slugs. It may be twee but is getting a message across as people are talking about it.

Oh dear lord.. Just let people be and stop being judgemental.. I honestly don't know why people would be so bothered, isn't there worse things on social media.. Some people on here are so nasty.

It's rather poignant really as there was a mass pet cull during WW2. www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24478532

I adore my cat and can't imagine the heartache.

Live and let live.

I had no idea about the purple poppies for horses. How lovely.

Haven't RTFT quite yet but 500,000 cats lived in the trenches to keep rats and mice numbers down. They lifted morale hugely and were 'adopted' by different platoons and brigades... given silly names and basically treated as one of the troops.

Your friend is a loon, OP - but cats were immensely valuable during WW1 and their contribution has been largely forgotten.

Here you go...

www.neatorama.com/pet/2014/08/25/The-Cats-Who-Served-in-WWI/

I'm not defending your friend but rather pointing out the sacrifice made

She's only embarrassing herself!

I think you’re being very sneery. Your friend donated money to the RBL for those poppies so why does it matter to you if she chose to put them on the cats? I think it’s very sweet and probably gave anyone who saw them a smile on a solemn day.

She's only embarrassing herself!

Only to a certain kind of snobby person.

Our horses have wore there purple poppies today, but that was to remember the thousands of horses that went to war as well. Don't remember any cats going lol x

Actually, it is estimated that around 500,000 cats were taken to the trenches for rat catching duties in WW1.

Don’t be so miserable- at least she bought poppies