Would you kill your pet if ordered to by the gov't?

[JackiePlace]

I read in the news this morning that at the beginning of the Covid crisis the gov't considered ordering the culling of all domestic cats in order to prevent the spread of Covid. This idea was later abandoned after it was proven that cats couldn't transmit Covid to humans.
AIBU to think that this would have caused a mass uprising? We are a nation of animal lovers, after all. Or would people have accepted it as they did some of the other draconian regulations (not visiting dying relatives, etc).

www.lbc.co.uk/news/govt-cat-cull-covid-pandemic/

Would I fuck kill my pet. It's no different from killing family members because they caught covid

no it's just awful. Why would they not just order people to keep them inside instead?

My worldview is fine and nothing needs checking but there is absolutely no way I would have euthanised my cat. The garden is cat proofed so he never goes anywhere so it wouldn't gave been necessary but no doubt that wouldn't have mattered. And yes, I do value him more than most humans.

Thank goodness this never came to anything. I don’t have any pets but the idea of people being ordered to kill what for most are family members makes me feel physically sick.

Sadly I think many would have complied if the threat was big enough and who knows what the backlash would
have been for those who refused. I hate to think.

I think most would prefer to hide their pets

And they're right in the global sense. Pets carry a very very heavy carbon footprint and one could certainly envisage a future scenario where there are limits on the numbers you could keep.

No way but I saw through all their stupid rules early on.

"A nation of animal lovers" that consumes more animals than the average nation.

Not in a million years.

Never never never

I think people would have done it. We were being told that a disease which could kill us all - but particularly the vulnerable - was upon us. People were scared into doing as they were told. A mixture of fear and shaming by neighbours would have meant compliance.

Yes vast majority would comply, i was involved with the foot n mouth slaughter, absolutely shocking, with many animals killed for no good reason at all, huge amount of corruption and waste... military involvement made sure farmers complied.

Govt would enforce with bans on pet food sales and a few people locked up for 10 years for hiding their pets... after all, we tolerated our kids being packed into halls behind fences with security guards.

People do what they told to do & moan on line :(

I was horrified to see this was happening in other parts of the World and would never have believed it would be considered in the UK, so I was shocked to read euthanising cats (and only cats, when dogs can also contract Covid) here, was being discussed albeit briefly.

I suspect most cat owners would have complied if they were asked just to keep them indoors, but killing them would have a bridge too far.

Because that doesn’t keep people scared and controllable of course.

This was always theoretical but why reveal it now? All these 15 min cities for eg are just the boiling of the frog. Big things are coming and we’d better be ready to make a stand and say enough is enough!!!

I'm willing to bet there would have been mumsnetters all over this if it had been guidance.

I vividly remember the thread where eating a bag of crisps on a park bench made you a murderer.

I think it's a totally impractical idea because (1)everyone taking their cats to the vet to be humanely destroyed during lockdown would just spread more disease. (2) vets don't have capacity to destroy every cat in the country, it would take months (3) there's no national register of cats so no way of checking if people have complied. But no I wouldn't have killed mine - I would have kept it indoors if told too though.

They done this early in the War, according to Grandad. Cats and Dogs taken and put down!! Not Grandad's pets though, Bless Him It did not last long but it did occur.

I wonder why there is not a single mention of this in the James Heriot books. Imagine what Mrs Pumphrey would have done when they came for Tricki Woo!
Seriously though, I would have thought that order would have a massive impact at "Skeldale House".

I totally agree, people went absolutely bat sht crazy

Imagine being sat in your living room today, knowing you had killed your beloved pet. To be reading the messages that horrific little man Hancock sent.

Knowing that you killed your pet based on political point scoring and hitting targets.

I don't believe or trust a word anyone in the government says

There's not a chance in hell I would do this

To be fair the advice seemed to be predominantly aimed at those in urban areas; dogs in rural areas were more likely to have jobs and the people were more likely to have access to scrap foods they could be fed on (slaughter byproducts etc).

But it wouldn't have fitted with the gentle nature of the JH books, which I'm not convinced was entirely realistic. DFriend is a vet and all her stories are either tragic or completely disgusting, with a side order of stories about being bitten by a hamster she was trying to put down.

I was surprised how compliant and obedient people were. If I didn't agree, I'm sure one particular neighbour would've done it for me. They went absolutely berserk during Covid!

What makes you think it would have been done humanely? In other parts of the World, during Covid , pets were tracked down using microchip databases, forcebly removed from households and gassed en masse.

NOT A CHANCE IN HELL.

Hard no. No one is touching my cat. I'd have kept him in, yes, but not allowed him to be pts. He's a healthy, much loved, much pampered pet.

I wonder why there is not a single mention of this in the James Heriot books.

He was working in the Yorkshire country side.

I think it was mainly London or other urban centers I think where most pets were killed - one with dense populations likely to be bombed with large populations of working poor already struggling with poverty and food scarcity.

The countryside where it was suggested initially pets should be evacuated to and where we did evacuate large number of children to often had greater access to additional food than urban populations and generally fared slightly better.