Dear all,
In April last year we sent out general information on the acquisition of
two rats, type Dumbo (an appellation they have received due to their
distinctive ears), and the tentative response of our house cat, Fredi (who
variously identifies with the notorious and now long-since passed
Zanzibarian singer and either of a number of German Idealist philosophers,
contingent on his mood du jour). Is it not time that we provided an update
on petwise matters?
While not certain as to the transcendental first movement of the issue,
Fredi has not been well for quite some time. Before Christmas he began
sneezing, his appetite suffered, and he acquired an elevated state of
tranquility. While quite a sight to behold even prior to his novel
proximity to the promised land of non-being we were a bit disconcerted by
his growing solemnity, so much that we found ourselves transporting said
feline to the vet on a daily basis for several weeks. After a series of
unsuccessful attempts at treatment, a string of swabs, samples, scans, and
what-have-yous, the Head Vet declared that our furry friend suffered from a
rare bacterial infection that wasn't easily treated with regular
medication. Enter uncanny, prescripted anti-biotic, in pill form.
With Fredi you can never be sure that he will digest whatever you present
him with. For a long time we believed that he longed for fish and other
non-vegetarian options, as all he would get from us was dry food, suitable
for what we deemed his particularly sensitive stomach. However, as he got
more ill, even delicious (to him) dead meat lost its appeal. Then, as he
refused to take his pills, and the option of spreading it out as powder on
his wet food was foreclosed by his lost appetite, we took recourse in
mashing the anti-biotic into some butter and spreading the concoction onto
Fredi's upper lip. Would it work? Indeed, as the vet had predicted the cat
licked his lips and thus capitulated to the demands of the medical
profession and big pharma. He should get well.
It would be nice to be able to say after more than a month and significant
efforts on our part that the cat is getting better. However, as he still
hardly eats and sometimes has to resort to vomiting we again brought him to
the vet last night, and with another round of intravenous feeding we felt
somewhat assured that he wouldn't simply wither away before our eyes. We
have been advised that this nasty type of pneumonia can take several more
weeks to heal.
The rats are unperturbed. From the outset Fredi seemed more concerned about
the rodents than they were about him, and with our cat's reduced condition
they have even less reason to be concerned that the historical ground for
our domestication of cats was that they were supposed to keep the rat
population down. In either case Fredi is too gentle to interfere with their
existence, preferring to sleep, hide in interesting and preferrably smelly
places, and occasionally play with babies. The only thing Fredi ever caught
was an old, overweight fly, but that was sometime during early Autumn, a
long time before illness struck.
Man's relation to animals is worth considering. However, to limit the
discussion let's think about man's relation to domesticated animals, i.e.
to critters we ourselves have turned into pets. With Aristotle we could
object that our care for them reveals our weakness: we should not forget
that they are merely non-reasoning beings, not deserving of our full
attention and care. Then, as we weight in with the utilitarians we could
counter that to care for animals is essentially to care for ourselves: when
those around us fare well, so do we. It is not necessarily a self-less
thing to make sure that our contexts are happy and fully operative.
However, in the end we decide to turn to Heidegger and his notion of care:
is it not because we take someone into our care that we care?
Take care, and all the best,
Mvh. / Yours sincerely,
Torgeir Fjeld
https://torgeirfjeld.com/
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