Have you ever encountered someone who categorically states they prefer animals to people?

Yeah, that would be my sister. She absolutely would say that, and she absolutely uses “interaction with animals to compensate for their lack of social skills.” Sadly she now has a child, so she uses the child instead of animals.

I don’t personally know anyone like that, but I recall seeing an episode of Wife Swap where the wife made the rest of the family eat off paper plates, only the dogs could eat off the dishes, and made her husband sleep in a different room only the poodles could sleep in bed with her. I couldn’t believe it….

I’m one of them. I love animals. I prefer them to people because they don’t have the capability of being vendictive or judgmental.

However, I don’t use my interaction with animals in place of humans.

And I love the retarded population because they too have that loving innocence that common society lacks.

Myself.

Yes, I know a girl that fits that description.

Yes I used to know a nurse who had the trifecta from hell Pit-Bull,Doberman & German Shepard she was completely obsessed with them she would cook dinner for all of them very night “IF” there was enough time she would cook something for herself otherwise she would just heat up a TV dinner.

@Pretty_Lilly If you knew what they put in commercial dog food, you might consider that, too. Yuck.

@taciturnu Intrigued to know who exactly populates this retarded society of which you speak?

I work in customer service so interacting with people is a big part of my job (I’ve also received 6 service awards for it) Now I’m saying this for a reason, I am very adept at interacting with people thank you but given the choice, I’d pick animals over people any day of the week. I have a badge that I used to wear on my bag when i was at college, it has a little cartoon pic of a smiling dog and written around the pic in a circle it says “the more people I meet the more I love my dog”

I’ve never changed my view. They don’t give anything but complete devotion and love and all they ask for in return is a hug, some dinner and the occassional kind word. For that small favour they give us everything. Humans lie, cheat, steal and hurt us in a million other ways. I prefer my furbabies any day.
hugs all xx
ps: <hugs @Tink1113 and @Taciturnu >

@ucme Retarded people? Thought that was clear. Sorry that it wasn’t.

I am one of those people myself. For as long as I can remember I have found interacting with people difficult but interacting with animals like a second nature. I have been badly hurt, emotionally by people but never by an animal (ie: the non human kind) and for that reason I will gladly admit that I prefer animals to the majority of humans (with a few exceptions).

@Leanne1986 (((((((((((hugs)))))))))))))

@bunnygrl Aw, thanks! Backatcha! It seems animals embody the character traits we as humans would all ideally have. Now if only I could get my husband to grow a tail…

I agree completely with @taciturnu‘s first post.

@bunnygrl Thank you :) and I have that same badge!

Thanks, @ShiningToast!

@bunnygrl where can I get that pin? :)

@taciturnu You prove my point exactly. Any point of view that differs from your own isn’t retarded. You really need to think that through.

Yep I am one too. And actually, I have very adequate social skills.

@ucme – Truly I find it so amusing that someone using an avatar such as yours is worried about the social skills and human interaction of others hehehehe!

@taciturnu LOL my hubby knows his place in the scheme of things, if there is a fire he knows my fur babies come first and he better be helping me get them out before he thinks of getting me to leave the house LOL, luckily he adores them too. He has always said that till we got married he never really thought about pets, his parents both worked while he was growing up so they never had pets. I like to think I have converted him to being a pet person :-)
hugs xx

@ucme Oops, I guess I wasn’t clear again. I’m referring to the mentally retarded population “because they too have that loving innocence that common society lacks.” I happen to be a VERY nonjudgmental person, so I wouldn’t care that someone’s ideas differ from mine. I do ask that next time you throw out an accusation that you please take the time to actually read my post.

Oh dear the voices of reason speak up. With every outrageous misinformed ill judged utterance my point is given more creedance. Cages rattled there then.

Yes.They’re goofy.

@Leanne1986 LOL really? <hugs> great minds etc lol <hugs some more>
@ShiningToast I got mine while I was at college, many moons ago so I don’t know I’m afraid, maybe @Leanne1986 can remember where she got hers? <hugs>

@taciturnu You are so funny

@ucme I apologize if I’m misunderstanding you. But that’s the only way I can make sense of it. You don’t seem open to communicating further about it.

@bunnygrl Yes, my husband was exactly the same way. He never really liked the idea of pets, but when we bought a house I told him I really wanted to get a dog. (Had been the longest time I’ve been without.) Turns out, he can’t keep his mind off of him! He’ll call me during the day to ask how he’s doing!

@lucillelucillelucille You only have to read some of these responses. Hilarious!

@taciturnu I once saw a dog eat a rotting dead bird,he immediately became sick and puked immediately a second dog came by and ate the puke !
My point !! Dogs do not need home cook meals they eat turds for god’s sake!! Commercial dog food could not be much worse.
Unless it is poison ! I really don’t think it matters what is in dog food.

@taciturnu I remember years ago when I was working for Index, I’d had the day from absolute hell, I mean everything hurt, I was exhausted, and I was on the shop floor when out of nowhere this lovely little boy ran over to me and wrapped his arms round my waist and hugged me. A man called over to him to come away and not to “bother me”, and walked over to fetch him and I told the man, who it turned out was his Dad, that he was far from bothering me. That he’d just made a really horrible day a wonderful one. This sweet little boy was called Malcolm and had learning difficulties. People don’t say retarded anymore but I knew what you meant, and I also know that you did not mean any offence either. I wouldn’t pay the OP any mind, he’s set out to offend I think and he seems to have found a little accomplice. <hugs> I pity them, I genuinely do. I’ve said before, I have always judged people by how they treat animals. Someone who has no resepct for another living creature, well, they don’t rate highly in my eyes.
hugs everyone xx

@bunnygrl and @ShiningToast I don’t know where mine came from as my dad bought it for me as a “stocking filler” one year. My dad has always appreciated and encouraged my love of animals but he also finds it very amusing that when certain people came to visit I would automatically take the dogs for a walk which is why he thought the badge was perfect for me!!!

@ShiningToast found a site that sells decals http://www.arcatapet.com/item.cfm?cat=11869 not quite the same thing though
hugs xx

@Pretty_Lilly My dog turns eats raw (which, by the way, is actually also less expensive than feeding commercial), but turns his nose up at anything that has been left out a little too long, or that the expiration date is approaching. I’m guessing a well fed dog can discern the difference, but we are all entitled to our opinions.

@bunnygrl What a great story! I loved working with people with autism. I found it intriguing, and so rewarding to see when people made progress overcoming hurdles. I actually worked for the “Department of Mental Retardation” just three short years ago. I was well accustomed to the word “retarded,” particularly because it was in all the medical records. (They just changed the name last year.) While it wasn’t politically correct for lay people, those of us who worked in the field used it regularly, so I do slip up. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. And thank you more for seeing the bigger picture. :)

@bunnygrl Spectacularly misjudged response. Never mind. I suppose it validates your point to feel a complete redundant pity for views other than your own. Bless!

@ucme Are you picking a fight?

No! Leave that petty minded futility to other far more accomplished hostility makers.

@ucme I live for views other than my own sweetheart, the world around me intrigues me constantly, the reason I said I pitied you was nothing to do with your views, its more the asking a question and then ridiculing the people who took the time to answer. Your avatar says it all.

which of my responses was “spectatularly misjudged”? I’m curious. Was it my reply to Taciturnu about that wonderful little boy at Index? apologies, I’m still a relatively new member here, I should have posted that in a PM on reflection, since it was addressed to Taciturnu and did not refer to the question. As I said apologies, i was raised with manners you see, and do try not to offend others, even when they are trying to be offensive. We’ve all taken time to answer your question sweetheart, don’t mock people it isn’t pleasant. hugs everyone xx

@bunnygrl Feel better now. Good good.

I know someone with no children who firmly believes that losing a pet is as painful as losing a child.

::raises hand::

People suck.

@ucme I’m sorry to have to say this and I am very aware that you are going to come back with, what you think is an intelligent put-down but it is attitudes like yours ln this thread that make me prefer animals to people.

I am pretty sure I have good social skills and a better than average understanding of human behaviour. That’s probably true of most psychologists.

I find that I can appreciate the nature of nearly any dog, regardless of age, size or breed. Most any dog takes to me within a minute or two. The reverse is also true.

Given a choice, the good character of most dogs in an improvement over the character of most people I have known.

Yet, I have not abandoned human kind. There are some that continue to surprise with their empathy, honesty and intellect.

I’ve heard many people say that, but I don’t know how seriously I take them.

For sure you can love animals, and live your life helping them out, raising them, whatever, but much too often I hear that statement as an angsty lone wolf pretext to hate humanity or society, which is kinda lame in and of itself.

There was a kid who said that at my high school. Dammit, he committed suicide the year after I transferred to another school. Dammit, Mike. :(

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his stallion at the Zoo.

My next door neighbour is like that. She’s in her 50s, lives alone (she’d been caring for her elderly mother who passed away last year), never been married, the only time she ever goes out is to buy food and walk her dogs.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with loving animals, but I have a serious problem with anyone who truly believes that animals are worth more than humans. Given a choice between a human life and the life of any animal, I choose the human. Those who suggest that animals are somehow superior are guilty of anthropomorphizing animals, and it is the characteristics imprinted on those animals by humans that are superior, not the natural behavior of the animals. Take the obvious example of dogs. Dogs exist within a fairly simple social hierarchy, and when the top animal in their pack is a human who enforces behavior that is morally acceptable to humans, you can get a dog whose behavior is better than many humans. But if you look at dogs left to their own devices, their hierarchy is established and enforced through violence, they will tear outsiders to shreds for intruding in their territory, they spend their live hunting and killing any animal they can find to eat, and if the animal is smaller, young, old, or otherwise weaker so much the better. I cannot say whether or not they will kill for fun, but they will kill for social position and favors, bringing their prey to an animal above them in the hierarchy, which may or may not actually want to eat it. Dogs, like all animals, are amoral. They make no ethical or moral judgments, only judgments that will get them fed or keep them from being attacked. And as for cats, anyone who has watched a cat with a mouse or a bug knows that cats torture and kill any small enough animal just to amuse themselves. No argument can be made that such and animal is better than humans. If you look into other animals you will find regular and stunning acts of barbarity within their natural lives, even supposedly gentle animals like dolphins.

No animals, left to their own devices, would ever come up with the idea of vegetarianism, or band together to risk their lives to fight fires that threaten animals they don’t even know, they would not concern themselves with the well being of animals on the other side of the planet. Only humans are even capable of considering morals and ethics, and while some reject moral decisions, as a whole humanity is capable of great acts of selflessness and kindness. Even if most days they seem selfish and self centered, only humans are actually capable, on the whole, of taking actions that benefit others with no perceived benefit to themselves.

That to me is why, funny as the old “the more I like my dog” joke is, and even if some people are complete jerks, I will never actually like animals more than people, and why there are people who consider it a flaw to like animals more than people. If the animal is a pet, then it is not the animal who is responsible for its behavior, it is the owner. If the animal is wild, you just haven’t seen enough of the overall behavior of the species in an objective manner to realize that it’s not nearly as nice as it seems.

A lot of the unsavory descriptions above apply to a lot more people I know than it does to dogs.

The point is why should you care whether someone prefers you or their dog, are you jealous?

@rooeytoo I don’t think anyone would really care if an acquaintance stated that they prefer animals over people. I prefer my dogs over a lot of people! But if you prefer your dog’s company over, say, your wife’s then, yes, you have a problem. Also, if there is a person who actually puts the worth of an animal’s life over a human’s life, then yes there is a problem IMO. If there is a person who would rush into a burning building and save a cat and leave a kid to perish, there is a problem. Don’t you agree?

Oh I love these hypothetical questions, but you have not given me enough details.

I am old so I am not sure I would be running into a burning building for anyone, but assuming I did, before I answer your question I would have to know, could I save them both? which one is closest to the way I am going in? Do I have time to save the one deeper in and myself as well, because let’s face it, I just don’t know if I am sacrificial enough to rush into a burning building if it meant I wasn’t going to make it out. If they were side by side, I would save both, no doubt about it. If the cat was first and I couldn’t make it any further, the cat would be saved. If the cat were further in the inferno and I couldn’t make it out, I would mourn the loss of the cat and save the kid.

These questions are never real to me, I know myself pretty well after years of counseling and introspection but I don’t know what I would do. I like to think I would go charging in screaming but who knows.

Personally I hope I never have to find out.

And I still like most dogs better than most people. If you would have made it the dog in the burning building it would have been even more difficult to answer.

@rooeytoo “A lot of the unsavory descriptions above apply to a lot more people I know than it does to dogs” – then you’re ignoring scientific fact in favor or your own preformed opinions. Dogs left to their own devices, as I clearly pointed out, are amoral. They cannot make moral judgments. Any apparently “moral” behavior exhibited by a dog is intended to please that dog’s pack leader and thus provide more food, less punishment. It’s the humans who make the dogs good. And I don’t deny that well raised dogs are nicer than badly raised humans, but the human race does things our of self sacrifice and moral reasoning that dogs are incapable of, absent human influence on them.

I don’t care if the lady across the street likes my dog more than me. I do care if the lady across the street would say, swerve to hit me with her car in order to avoid hitting my dog. I also care if my family members have serious social problems that cause them to avoid most human contact and instead spend their time with animals. Especially when that family member has a young child who is being raised in that environment, and so is likely to not have the opportunity to develop appropriate social skills or to interact with humans regularly enough to make his own independent decision about whose company he prefers.

And look, if you claim to prefer animals to people, that implies that you would choose to save an animal’s life over a human’s. The first statement makes the hypothetical question reasonable, you’re just nit-picking because you don’t want to say whether you value an unknown animal;s life more than an unknown human’s.

You’re funny @Snarp! It’s no wonder I like dogs better than most people, heheheh.