don't bite the hand which feeds you

Don't bite the hand which feeds you

By David Verveer

My brother Bob told me a traumatic story, which when you think about it, gives you a true and realistic picture of the world of today. It started some years back, when one of the many street cats in their neighborhood, found a new way to get fed, by standing outside their backdoor and crying softly. One day my sister in law made the mistake in putting out some milk, which was the beginning of a daily ritual of feeding the cat.

My brother, like many, hates cats; especially because some years back he was attacked by one cat, without any apparent reason and ended up with a poisoned hand.

He was against the infiltrating animal from the very beginning, but that did not change anything and slowly but surely, the cat moved in, and transferred from street cat to house cat, with his comfortable cushion in the corner of the kitchen.

Then trouble started, when the cat became ill and of course, my brother took it to the veterinarian, who examined the beast and told my brother, that the cat it had a serious infection in his belly, that has to be removed immediately by operation, at the cost of a mere 480 NIS (US $ 115). Understandably, Bob could not refuse, and the operation was performed and according the veterinarian was successful.

After a half day of keeping the cat under observation, my brother took it back home. The animal was drugged and tranquilized and looked near death.

Bob put him on the back bench of his car in a blanket, and brought him home, where a long night of severe suffering started for both the cat and my brother, as it cried non stop, and he was forced to go and look every time the animal cried out. They decided that there has to be something wrong with the animal, and the following morning, the cat and my brother went back to the vet, who examined him, and gave it some more pain killing drugs.

Again the cat was put back on the back bench in the blanket, but this time it looked like near death, worrying about it, my brother stopped the car, and checked if it was still breathing. Suddenly it jumped up and attacked my brother, resulting 24 serious deep bites in his right hand. After this attack, the cat in deep amok jumped out the car and disappeared forever.

Bob's hand started swelling and for more than a week he suffered severe pains and could not hold the paint brush (Bob is a painter). End of the story.

But does this story not teach us some facts of life, for example, don't try to change a street cat to a house cat, on one hand, and gratitude is not a part of an animal instinct, or cats don't attach to humans and in actual fact find a way to exploit the human to give them what they want, and if we go somewhat deeper, we find that if we replace the above cat by some humans, the story remains unchanged, and ends with the same result, the donator gets bitten, without any show of gratitude, as whatever we try to think that we are different from animals, history shows that animals without conscious act the same way as humans.