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/

I believe the last time this happened pet owners were directed to purchase a bolt gun.

This sort of comment is interesting, given that so many people went along with lockdown and all the restrictions. I said at the time if one of my (adult) children were dying in hospital, someone would actually have to kill me to stop me getting to them. Yet people on this thread are keener to defend their pets than they were to refuse to go along with the "rules".

If only they had spoken up, we might have been spared lockdown.

I'm not seeing this through retrospective eyes. I disagreed with lockdown right from the start, and carried on seeing my friends, allowed my teenagers to have 'gatherings' here, smuggled them to friends' houses, went shopping every day for inessential items etc, etc. Indeed, I started a MN thread to ask if anyone else was refusing to comply (under another name) and it was deleted (ie censored) by HQ for not toeing the party line.

So I'm surprised that so many people would defend their cat, but were not prepared to defend their own rights and those of their loved ones.

Nope not a chance I would have sent them into hiding first. I also think if the government had even suggested this it would have been the straw that lost them all compliance with requirements. Moderate scientists were already shouting that we didn't need restrictions like they wanted, just look at Matt Hancock keeping kids off school when it wasn't needed!!!

Also hand foot and mouth was an economic decision not a scientific one, most adult animals recover from hand foot and mouth. That's another government scandal!!!

forums.pigeonwatch.co.uk/forums/topic/355587-1969-rabies-outbreak-containment-what-would-happen-today/

Rabies outbreak what would happen today. The comments are priceless and pre covid

I agree with you. When I think back to elderly isolated on care homes or people alone dying in hospital it makes me feel very sad and wonder where was everyone saying no chance and over my dead body as on this thread.

I also think if the government had even suggested this it would have been the straw that lost them all compliance with requirements

The straw that lost them all compliance should have been allowing family members to die alone and to have funerals with virtually nobody present. It should have been refusing to allow parents of young children to be with them in hospital. How could an animal be 'the final straw' compared to the stuff that actually happened? What the fuck was wrong with people?

Foot and Mouth and Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease are two completely separate things.

Exactly. It’s so disconcerting if you said as much at the time

If someone had told me that I could avoid lockdown and all that went with it, if I killed my cat, I would have been saying goodbye kitty. And I am fond of my cat.

Not for COVID, for a more deadly disease yes

A lot are closer to pets than elderly family members. Yes I would have gone in to see elderly family as we were working with the virus so lost interest in it quite quickly, my mother who was scarred of catching it more than likely wouldn't. Not sure I would have wanted her to go in either as she older so was safer and happy staying at home.

If you tried to take the dog (or cat) she had in the house with her that had no chance of catching it, not a chance would she have let you. She would literally have been more likely to lock down to save the dog than an elderly family member!

@NeverDropYourMooncup I'm tired foot and mouth disease 😉 to be fair I think it was the point we should have defended animals and just out lawed meat eating.

When I think back to elderly isolated on care homes or people alone dying in hospital it makes me feel very sad and wonder where was everyone saying no chance and over my dead body as on this thread

It's a fair point, but back then there were still plenty who believed - or perhaps just wanted to believe - that government were genuinely doing their best for us all and that there was some hope of "everyone being in it together"

With the evidence piling up that this wasn't always the case, it's possible a change of attitude is happening and that some wouldn't be quite so quick to be fooled again

I don't have a cat myself, but I expect it makes a difference that people can easily envisage a mechanism whereby they wouldn't have to comply. You just hide your cat in your house. We don't have a national pet register or anything of that nature and clearly neither would we have had enough police or army to go house to house checking fast and efficiently enough, so it's quite obvious it wouldn't have worked and people could've evaded it (hindsight also helps here). Whereas I don't know how you manage to enforce your continued presence in a hospital. Not saying it couldn't happen, but it's harder than just unilaterally deciding not to let your pet out.

Fwiw me and mine opted out of lockdown fairly early, so I don't come at this from a position of respect for the authorities in that respect.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_cat_strategy

People were afraid. I think lockdown did save lives, and they were brought into being by countries worldwide. The death toll was colossal all the same.

I stuck by the rules but I'm not sure I would have been able to comply in the case of a dying parent or a sick child.

Plus cats could be confined, so the idea of culling them is beyond ridiculous! Humans weren't culled; they were asked to stay at home. Any risk could have been mitigated against.

Knowing what I know now I wouldn't kill the volume on my fucking stereo for these corrupt charlatans never mind a beloved family pet that frankly would have more sense than the arseholes apparently leading us

No way.

I hope so Puzzled. With Covid anyway.

It's a fair point, but back then there were still plenty who believed - or perhaps just wanted to believe - that government were genuinely doing their best for us all and that there was some hope of "everyone being in it together"

I disagree. I think it was a weird kind of 'group think'. I don't understand what drives it, but it was similar with the death of Princess Diana. All of a sudden, everyone was expected to feel and do certain things, and anyone who didn't comply was vilified. I just think there's a peculiar herd mentality that comes into play. My dad, who is a superbly clever man in many, many ways (taught Physics at Oxford) was completely taken in by Covid propaganda. He and I had to stop talking about it as we were so diametrically opposed. But he has always been a follower of crowds, whereas I've always run very fast in the opposite direction if I've seen a crowd walking somewhere.

With the evidence piling up that this wasn't always the case, it's possible a change of attitude is happening and that some wouldn't be quite so quick to be fooled again

I think the collective experience of Partygate is probably impossible to control for here. It may be one of those things where the public attitude is never the same again.

@BashirWithTheGoodBeard that's an interesting take on it - and yes, I agree that it's easier to imagine a situation in which you could hide your cat than it is to imagine a situation in which you would chain yourself to a hospital bed if your child was in it (which is what I would have been doing - someone would have literally had to have sedated me in order to remove me forcibly in that situation). But it is obviously a lot easier to respond to an imaginary scenario to which there would be some quite easy solutions.

It's a shame if it took people as long as Partygate to see sense, but if it has the long-term effect of preventing another lockdown, I'll go with that.

I didn't give a shit about Partygate as I may be annoying but I am not a hypocrite.

If we were a nation of animal lovers, we'd all be vegan. We are clearly not anywhere close to being a nation of animal lovers.

Not for COVID, for a more deadly disease yes

A slight problem here is that it's hard to know how deadly something is in the very early stages, which is why even I complied with it all during the first lockdown

But then when it dragged on and pieces like the infamous SAGE report advocating "more emotive language" confirmed the manipulation taking place, I reverted to using some common sense and making more choices for myself

If it happened again I'm certain some would relish the opportunity to once more shriek that we're all murderers, etc, but I'm not convinced government could carry so many with them in future - and the more that keeps coming out the less likely it becomes

My cats are inside cats so it would have made no sense. The only people they could have caught covid off is us and the only people they could have spread it to is us and we were on lockdown anyway.