Many people have a close relationship with their pets. These people treat their birds, cats, or other animals as members of their family. In your opinion, are such relationships good? Why or why not? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer. |
As the economic situation of people is better than the past, the number of people having pets at home has been gradually increasing. When I take a walk outside or play at a park, I can see many people walking the dog. They say they love their puppies and think of them as a part of their family. In opposition to this idea, I strongly argue that animals are different from human beings so the relation between animals and humans and humans and humans is different. The rationale behind this is that there are a huge number of children who need care and help and feeding pets at home charges a lot of social capitals. In addition, having pets can be harmful to people. More than any thing else, we have lots people and children abandoned and ignored in our society and these people need psychological and financial aids from us. They are our parents and children who we have to take care of because their live situations are much worse than we can imagine. Last year, I was a member of ‘SickKids’, an organization giving free medical services to children and saw a brother and a sister physically abused and abandoned by their parents. I wished I could take them to my family to protect them from the nasty environment. This simple yet striking example goes to show how urgently needed it is to have those poor and hopeless people and children into our family than the animals. In addition, the cost to feed the pets at home can not be ignored. As the owners of the pets want to own different and unique pets, the social capitals to do so have been astronomical every year. For instance, my friend having a puppy is willing to spend more than half of her pocket money for the dog every month. She wants to buy various kinds of Hello-Kitty clothes and shoes and take her to the hair shop to trim and dye her fur with pink and green color twice a month. The dog also has to take many shots to stay away from the cold or other diseases. From my friend’s life, I am well convinced that I cannot afford to have the luxurious life with the puppy. Last but not least, pets are not always clean to stay with humans at home. Some of them have poisonous and toxic chemicals on their ski or fur or even threaten or attack people with their armed teeth. Last year, when I visited my friend’s house where the family was feeding a Persian cat, she suddenly turned into a devil, scratching my face with her claws and spreading all her dirty germs onto my body. I had to suffer from it for a long time until I was recovered. Thus, it is obvious that people need to thoroughly study about characteristics and features of the pets before they start to feed them at home as a family member. In sum, I strongly believe that having an intimate relationship with pets as one of the family members is not so much desirable for the aforementioned reasons. Although the pet owners insist that pets become a friend for them to overcome loneliness and are faithful to follow what they tell them to do, it will not be worthwhile to have them at home when we have to care for the socially abandoned people and children and if the animals are economically and physically harmful to us. |