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/

Absolutely f*ing not. I'd be voting to cull the ones who wanted to implement such rule.

Please, let’s find that mad poster! 😆

I think history has taught us that there is almost no bottom to what people will do in certain sets of circumstances. Considering what humans have done to other humans in extremis, including friends, neighbours and even family, I think there is little doubt that the great majority would conform.

Also, did they not realise people could've just not let cats out and have them stay indoors. What sort of idiot would suggest going to such extremes as culling cats when you can just keep them indoors.

Absolutely no way. I'd do prison time before I let someone kill my cats.

People wouldn't have stopped at their own pets either. Especially cat haters.

Absolutely not. I'm heartened to see that the majority feel the same. Maybe only with hindsight though as I'm still amazed at what people did tolerate and even perpetuate in the name of the covid effort.

How do you create fear in a large population?
Think about the total overreaction bonkers horse-shit stuff they did for the past 3 years….they lied. Pure & simple.

They were never to going to cull cats 😉.

We slaughter animals every day, there is no moral difference between killing a pig and killing a cat or dog. Even those who are vegan/vegetarian who own pets are almost certainly contributing to the meat industry and its horrors. I am not vegetarian by the way!

I don't see how the decision to not have a pet equates to not loving an existing pet though. People decide not to have children for environmental reasons, it hardly means they'd be loveless parents if they did have children.

Personally, having had a lot of pets, no. Some people have pets more out of convention, but some people (and the number these days is growing) truly see pets as part of the family, and why wouldn't you? Dogs are sentient beings that form genuine love and attachment, and so are humans.

There's also a difference between passively leaving your animals and actively causing their death. If I truly had to leave my pets because attempting to save them I mean I guess I would leave them, but I can't imagine that many scenarios where a healthy dog these days would be an actual hindrance.

I would've thought dogs and cats living on farms would be fulfilling a function too. Mousers, sheepdogs etc.

We would have hidden ours. The disgruntled yowls through lockdown wouldn't have been fun.

Yes, this! And frankly, I'd be hard pressed to take any public health advice from this government after recent MH revelations!

I really do not want to see threads like this on here. I am a cat sitter and I own six cats.

The whole thread is just barmy.

Cull my cats. NO.
I'd rather the government cull themselves instead. Useless, lying, incompetent, hypocrites.

I would kill anyone who even attempted to harm my cats let alone tried to outright kill them. I would happily let such vile and despicable humans kill themselves. Zero guilt.

But if you cat was likely to cause the death of people age 40 plus that's ok with you?

Not a fucking chance.

The fall out from such a decision would have been horrific too.

Pet owners hiding their pets, non-pet owners/animal haters who follow government blindly or want an excuse to hurt animals would have seen this as a green flag to go out killing pets or abusing pet owners.

Massive distrust in government... would be chaos, vets would be in uproar, for many small animal vets, cats are a big part of their routine consults and thus income - and then if cats, why not dogs...

Would have been utter madness - and not remotely the same as the War, where it was felt that there wouldn't be the food to feed the dogs/cats/etc, and even so, many many people in cities/towns did NOT do this and refused to consider it.

My grandma got MORE dogs during the war!

I didn’t RTFT so apologies if this was already mentioned however I remember when Lockdown started, I believe it was Japan.. The people started killing their cats and there was a load of people throwing them out of their windows from a height all because Im sure the government said the said thing which was that cats could spread Covid.

Then there was the first woman who’s dog caught covid (that was diagnosed) in one of those Oriental countries and it was fine however they started saying about them being able to spread it and the government was particularly interested in her bringing the animal in so they could study it and low and behold the animal went home and “died”🧐. She made an excuse up as to how this perfectly healthy dog died (because remember as much as the animals caught covid it had no effect on them). I don’t think they questioned her any more on the situation but I agree with some PPs when they said that during that time people went crazy so I wouldn’t be surprised to if people did willingly hand over their pets to be killed for them.

If it was a mandate, mass culling would imply the government would have to go round and capture and kill them in big numbers (we are speaking the outdoor population that are good at evading attacks). So I picture them doing what they done with the Llama Jeronomo (sp?)

this threat is so worrying of cause pets are cherished but to put a pet above the life of a human is shocking. Animals are not equal to human life.

40+? What happens to you on your 40th birthday that you suddenly become vulnerable to something you weren't when you were still 39? This rhetoric was trotted out ad nauseum and the whole thing was ridiculous.

I am now unwatching this thread.

No one over the age of 40 lives in my house to be exposed to my cat...

@NewNovember You are right, animals are not equal to human life… ANIMALS ARE FAR, FAR, SUPERIOR TO ANY INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP OF HUMANS.

I would've thought dogs and cats living on farms would be fulfilling a function too. Mousers, sheepdogs etc.

Yes that's true but not all the animals her encountered were living on farms - some were pets.

But they'd still have less fear of bombings than west end docks and probably more access to additional food. Certainly many who took in refugee children were often shocked at the level of poverty they'd be brought up in - so perhaps slightly higher living standards would mean more likely others would take in pets from called up family members - plus farm worker were less likely to be called up - or relocated to work elsewhere in country as DH GM was.

I know right. I wonder what the responses would be outside of a predominantly UK audience? I'm in Ireland and the general feeling is that people in the UK are a bit barmy about pets - not animals outside of the cat/dog/horse though necessarily.