Oh, I agree, this was pretty inevitable.
Still makes me sad, though.
GabuEx
Oh yeah, it's DEFINITELY sad. But let's all keep in mind where the primary fault lies here.
The cat was cool. I love cats, and I would REALLY love this cat. But this cat died because of irresponsible pet ownership.
I'd suggest that we all resist any temptation to get angry at the person who ran over the cat. That may have been intentional, but was PROBABLY just an accident. (I'm not going to deny that some people DO intentionally try to run over small animals, but that's a topic for another discussion). The sad thing here is that the owner took on the duty of keeping her pet safe, and she was negligent in those duties. And hell, once she found out that her cat was getting "famous" for taking the bus, do you think there was ANY chance that she'd put a stop to that for her pet cat's health and safety? No. It looks like she ended up letting that stuff continue, without any kind of regard for what would inevitably happen to the animal that she was supposed to be taking care of.
Yeah, this is VERY sad. Sad because this cat didn't have to die like that. It died because its owner was negligent and irresponsible. And letting that cat run around in the street could have essntially resulted in PEOPLE getting hurt. If the the driver had been able or willing to swerve to avoid the cat, then we could have been reading about a HUMAN BEING getting killed because this woman deemed it acceptable to let her pet run around in the street. And this story is even sadder because the state of cats in this country (I wasn't paying attention, but I'm assuming that this story happened in the USA) is just pathetic. It is COMMON for people to let their pet cats run around free, without any thought or concern about whether that cat stops coming home because it's dead. This cat was called Casper. CASPER. As in, a GHOST. I guarantee that this woman gave it this name after she dismissed it as being dead, and then it came back (yes the story says otherwise, but I don't believe that).
Yet every day, we have cats running around in the street, less-famous cats getting smeared all over public roads, and cats reproducing like rats because their owners aren't even responsible enough to get their cats neutered/spayed before essentially letting them run amok. And that needs to stop. That SERIOUSLY needs to stop. Because in addition to being bad for HUMANS, this is bad for CATS. Cats are seen as the "Throwaway Pet", the pet that you can buy because it's cute as a baby, and then essentially throw away as soon as it becomes annoying or inconvenient. They're exactly the same thing as iguanas and baby pythons. You know about iguanas, right? Those cute little 6 inch long lizards that you see for sale for $15 at the pet store? They're throway pets. They're cute when they're babies, but they get BIG. Once that 6 inch long cute green lizard turns into a vicious 6 FOOT long monster with razor sharp claws and teeth, and the equivalent of an Alien tail that essentially works like a ****ing bullwhip, this animal suddenly ceases to be "cute". Then it gets thrown away.
And yes, iguanas can be "tamed". Except that "taming" a lizard is a hell of a lot harder than "taming" a cat. In the EXACT same way that it's harder to tame a cat than it is to tame a dog. At least cats and dogs are both small-to-medium-sized predatory mammals. But when we're talking about iguanas, we're talking about "the reptilian brain". It is a ****ing REPTILE. And yet, people buy these cute little tiny lizards hoping that it will just warm up to them naturally in the same way that a dog comes to love you. It doesn't work like that.
And hell, even if someone does actually put in the extreme amount of hard work required to "tame" their iguana, that still ignores the fact that many of these animals die because of poor nutrition. Dogs can spend their entire lives on dog food. Cats can spend their entire lives on cat food. But iguanas? Many of them die because they have specific dietary needs. Some lizard owners try to get by on feeding their lizards food designed for dogs and cats, and that often tends to result in morbid obesity, broken bones due to calcium insufficiencies, and irreversible liver failure due to the liver becoming too fatty as a result of being fed food designed for a completely different kind of animal.
And the same thing applies to pythons. Go to your local pet store. I guarantee that they're gonna have baby burmese pythons and baby boa constrictors for sale for about $150. Every one of these animals is likely to be dead within five years. Because just like cats, people buy these things when they are babies and then have no problem throwing them away to die once they become inconvenient. And how many people who find that 11 inch long burmese python cute are going to have the means to take care of it when it exceeds a length of FIFTEEN FEET? How many people buying these baby snakes live on rabbit farms and have an endless supply of spare rabbits that they can use as food? This **** gets expensive, impractical, and DANGEROUS.
I'm talking about "fad pets". The kinds of pets that are "cool" or "cute" or "trendy" once they're in a small and short specific stage in their life span. Then as soon as they grow beyond that short window, people throw them away like garbage. Cats DEFINITELY get treated this way, and this seriously needs to stop. Stop thinking of cats as a little novelty that doesn't really matter if it gets killed. It's a PET. A lifelong commitment, and that commitment should include keeping it SAFE. It one is not willing to take that commitment with a lame-ass cat, then people SHOULD STOP GETTING CATS.
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