11 min read I Was A Hypocrite About How I Treated Animals

<p> Anne E. McGuigan </p>

Let me begin by thanking everyone for the outpouring of love and sympathy offered to me after the death of my little kitty cat, Chimpy. I am truly overwhelmed and very grateful. I received e-mails, missives on Facebook and of course kindly comments on my website. It was my intention to follow up Chimpy's tribute with a post outlining how my veganism has changed the way I think about all creatures on this earth and just much how these furry persons we know personally can impact our lives, whether they live with us or not. I am sitting down to do so now, with all your kind comments, condolences and best wishes floating around in my bruised heart.

Chimpy is not the first furry friend to whom I have said goodbye. In order of loss - not importance - there was mom's dog, Sal; our dogs: Bertha, Elfie, Mac, Lucy; my daughter's cat, Baguette and my mother's dog, Birdie. I had a relationship with all of these beings and loved them for their individuality, their personalities, their quirky ways and their varying degrees of return of affection to me.

I advocated strongly for all of these beings when they needed me. I provided those who lived with me a warm place in which to sleep, food, medical help and companionship. I will admit freely and a bit ashamedly that when our children were young and we were racing around doing what we thought we had to do "make" it in this world, we did not take our dogs for enough walks or play with them as much as we should have. But we did care for them in a loving way. And they rewarded us by being devoted, wagging their tails, being happy to see us and providing comfort for us when we did not feel well. Baguette, the little kitty cat graced us with her fun loving spirit and contended purrs which filled the empty spaces in our home. Most were more than happy to share a sick bed with us in the middle of the afternoon, in the middle of the week. That was always such a great and blessed feeling. I valued the presence in my life of all these animals. It is crucial to note that while I was taking care of them I was also consuming their confreres enslaved on farms, wearing non-human animal skin in the form of clothing, shoes, purses and wallets, visiting zoos and aquariums. I lusted after cars with "leather" (a.k.a. hide) seats and furniture with that unmistakable smell and feel of skin, all the while keeping our abode and clothes and personal selves clean with products that had been tested on animals and most certainly contained the by-products of slaughtered animals.

There is a certain hypocrisy there that no doubt colored my understanding and acknowledgement of the inherent value my furry companions had and have for their own lives. We fast forward to present day and here I am an "enlightened" vegan having just lost a very good friend of mine - little Chimpy. But hey, this loss feels so different this time. It dawns on me slowly, like the spreading of ripples on a lake after a stone has been skipped on its glossy surface, that all feeling and sentient beings exist for their own reasons, for their own purposes, separate and distinct from any connection they many have with me. I had "book learned" this after becoming vegan and have, on occasion, expressed this view in writing. I never really understood it fully until a few days after I had looked into the eyes of a determined cat when he was fighting for his life and then, sadly, when he wasn't.