Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Our responsibly to life

(Patches [Guinea Pig])

One would think that with human's supposed higher intelligent, that we'd be move invested into the things that matter in life, and the things that our lives effect. Unfortunately we live in a world where more often then not, humans only act in self-interest. Though ironically, because of our own self-interest we've also done irreversible things to our own home. Unfortunately that will likely be our demise.  We take life too fast, and too selfishly to sit down and notice the lives of the creature we destroy. We've cause genocides, and murdered countless creates for our own benefit. One would only hope that we could be evolved beings that would benefit the lives of our neighbors. It is our responsibly to this planet, and it's wonderful creatures to enrich their lives as opposed to ruin them.

(True story)
Guinea pigs are an animal that are a victim of human's selfishness. We've inbred them and domesticated them to the point where they cannot survive on their own. Not to mention the amount of diseases they can now get due to inbreeding. I can't say for sure, but I would think that most of the domestication is because some people would breed them for food. Every now and then someone would want one as a pet (much like piglets are treated now) and then they became a pretty typical household pet. I have a lone guinea pig named Simba, and he needed a cage met because they are a herding breed, and do better in pairs, or more. I've never really had much of an issue with pets from petco and I do own two rats from them who are doing great. When I went to petco, I wanted just to look at the guinea pigs and see if they had any I thought would be a good fit for Simba. I met Patches. Patches was small, extremely young guinea pig. He seems relatively healthy, but I thought something might have been wrong with him because his eye seemed strange. So I told the employee what I thought and he said that it was just his fur or the lighting. I allowed myself to relay on someone who I thought would be educated to have a better judgement then I would.


Patches was always a bit shy, always kind of run away from us when we'd try to handle him or feed him food from our hands. This was pretty typical behavior of unsocialized guinea pigs. Once you'd pick him up though, he'd love on you. Nuzzles you and lick your fingers. Patches was very sweet. We adored him and he got along really well with Simba. Every day however, right before we fed them their fresh food, I'd always check his breathing to make sure he didn't get an URI from being at the pet store, and he always seemed fine; there were no signs of an URI at all. Last night our sweet little Patches was acting strange, so I check again to make sure his breathing was okay. It wasn't. It was very labored, and he has crust on his nose, so I quickly cleaned off his nose. I also had some medicine for treating URIs on hand so I gave him a dose right away, but that didn't seem to work. He passed away last night in my arms around 7am. There wasn't anything more I could have done for him. It was late when we discovered his illness so there was no vet to take him to. Even so, I don't think there was anything anyone could have done. Except, when I noticed that he might have been sick in the store, the employee should have reported it right away, Its always better to be safe then sorry.

Things like this teach me to trust people less, and trust my instincts more. I knew that something was wrong, but I ignored it because I trusted another selfish human. I've always had a nack for being extremely empathetic towards people and animals. From now on, I'll always know to trust that judgement over anyone else's. 

I wont entirely blame petco for this, because I don't think it's entirely their fault. I think its mankind's fault for being selfish and neglectful, and mine for being willfully ignorant.

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