Pets/animal-bonding

Neither of us consider animals something to ‘love’ or have an emotional connection with.

I was exposed to the concept of pets in childhood. This was mostly in the homes of neighbours and childcare workers and on TV, as we did not have pets at home. My friend’s household, on the other hand, has always had cats.

At around the ages of 5–7, my sister and I would occasionally play with the dog at one neighbour’s house. The other neighbours had cats, and I found them intriguing, though they never allowed someone to get close. I was far more interested in the cats than the dog.

One childcare worker had kittens, which I also found intriguing. They were more ready to interact than the neighbour’s cats. Another childcare worker had an old dog, which I was not interested in interacting with and generally found repulsive. My friend also shared this preference for cats over dogs, which, in retrospect, was due to the greater human resemblance.

At around age 7 or 8, I wanted a rabbit or a cat and asked my mother for one, but she refused.

Through ages 11–15, my interest in pets decreased as my brain learnt more about the implications of them for survival than it associated them with my own emotions (the social mindset).

At age 15, my friend stated, ‘Do you like dogs? Hate the smell of dog.’ I replied, ‘I have grown to hate most, if not all, pets.’

At age 18, a Facebook friend (who I was close to in primary school) posted a photo of a pug with the caption, ‘The new member of our family!’ I commented, ‘Breathing difficulties’, tagged with a news article on breathing difficulties in pugs. The Facebook friend soon deleted my comment.

At age 18, after sending screenshots of several YouTube comments that were also ridiculing a video titled, ‘Why losing a dog feels like losing a family member’, I stated, ‘No, I don’t cry when a human-bred disfigured wolf lowered down to “property” that a human “owns” dies.’

At age 20, I stated, ‘It’s the fact having [a pet] provides zero benefit whatsoever. It’s not helping you hunt; it’s not letting you ride its back, hauling freight; it’s not a mode of transport; it’s not pest control. It’s nothing. It’s a burden. It lives off you and your household, and for what? Just to shit on the floor?’

At age 20, I remarked on messages from a girl I was speaking to that her cat was ‘ill’. I stated, ‘How do you even respond to that?’ I later stated, ‘That was her last message to me, and I just didn’t have it in me to respond. I wouldn’t have been able to respond with anything, anyway.‘

At age 19, my friend stated, ‘I cannot enter homes that have dogs, because of the smell. I won’t go in. I hate animals. It causes so much anxiety when there is a dog.’

At age 19, my friend stated, ‘I’ve been living with cats since 0 years old. Practicality-wise, I’d never get one of my own. … I didn’t cry when my cats died 2006–2009-ish, certainly didn’t write a eulogy.’

At age 20, I stated, ‘It’s still scary as ever that I haven’t encountered a single person other than you who shares a hatred of the idea of pets, or makeup, or alcohol.”

At age 20, in response to a screenshot of an online profile of traits for a cat breed, I stated:

‘I mean look at this: “Affection”, as a literal parameter. It just shows that’s exactly why people own cats. It is the overwhelming reason. I do not have that utter weakness for an emotional connection to an animal. These people go weak at the knees for pets.’

My friend replied, ‘It’s the fact this site and this classification scheme even exists. Instead of learning about taxonomy, they’re doing that.’

At age 20, I stated, ‘Bacterial and viral vectors, that’s all pets are. It’s really shocking to me how few people I could relate to on that, how practically everyone gushes over dogs or cats.’

At age 20, I stated:

‘It doesn’t matter which pet it is. It’s the concept of the pet itself. I’ve never met someone who was against pets, just like I’ve never met someone who was against makeup.

I don’t care about the particular hate of dogs. I care about, above all, the lack of an emotional connection and gushing over any pet whatsoever. Any talk about the differentiation between pets is negligible to me if they still have that emotional connection. Don’t care if it’s a lizard, dog, snake, whatever.

The things people do to both dogs and cats make me feel sick. I picture all the dust and germs that have accumulated on their fur, then they snog it. Pets are haven for germs and a burden.’

I later stated, ‘They prowl through crevices that harbour dust and germs and walk barefoot everywhere, with no regard for cleanliness. They carry shoe dirt onto beds and sofas.’

At age 20, I stated, ‘It’s the fact they prioritise pet care over wild-animal care, when it’s wild animals that are having their numbers reduced and pets that are overpopulating like crazy.’

At age 20, I stated, ‘I felt the most sick I’d ever felt at an online post before yesterday.’ My friend replied, ‘Which one?’ I replied, ‘It was a post about a dog supposedly posing and smiling for a camera. I felt sick to my stomach. I had to immediately shut it off and mute the account.’

At age 20, I stated:

‘I don’t care about the pet, but I especially don’t care about the pet owner. The pet is just an unfortunate side effect brought into existence by humans. Ideally, domesticated dogs and cats serving absolutely no purpose at all and with disgusting breed deformities should never have existed.

It’s the economy that pet-lovers fuel. It’s something I don’t quite understand whatsoever. The whole reason pets are a thing is because there’s a demand, one that makes absolutely no sense and I can’t relate to.

At the end of the day, it’s not a practical need they’re serving; it’s emotional satisfaction, and I don’t compute with that, but then they’d argue that pets do help people emotionally and mentally.

You can’t win, because the demand is there. People have some sort of overwhelming connection with pets that’s enough to make their mental health better, prevent suicide and depression.’

At age 20, I stated:

‘It’s just an alien mindset. It’s truly, truly compelling, the force that compels them, that the dog has over them. They have what is essentially a receptor in their brain for that force, and I don’t.

“They are truly angels on this planet earth”, “We don’t deserve dogs”, “Because of little furry monsters like this, I made it through those darkest points.”

It’s made me see them as less people to be blamed and more people with a condition, a condition that’s different to my condition. If we’re going to consider that everyone has a condition, a genetic way their brain has been programmed, that’s how I see them. I still won’t let it near me or let dogs near me, but I can only feel pity or despair about them. It’s still scary that it’s all people, though.

And also, I don’t relate to the harming mindset. I don’t relate to those who harm animals at all. I feel the same confusion and inability to understand, and what’s worst is that those who harm animals often also have the animal-caring mentality. They can flip.

My position is one based totally on practicality. It’s not practical to harm animals when they have done nothing to you. There’s just no reason to, so it’s illogical to do so, but the same goes for those who gush over animals, especially domesticated ones, when the pet was created to satisfy a human emotional desire and nothing more, when it’s extremely overpopulated for that reason, when it has deformities due to selective breeding and has no real reason to live other than us humans. It’s like a psychotic disease to do so.’

My friend replied, ‘They humanise them, to the point they assume they have human thought processes.’

I replied, ‘It’s psychotic to do so. It’s conjuring up things that aren’t there, in the practical world. And the thing is, because they only see through their emotional goggles, they will take any sort of positive gesture or behaviour from the animal as a positive reception of their baby-voice and gushing, even if the animal just wants food and knows where/how to get it or even if just makes a noise at a certain moment.

They will see it through the emotional goggles and see it as an expression of “love”, so it reaffirms their beliefs. They can’t be falsified [like God], because normal, wild, survivalist animal behaviour confirms their emotional beliefs.

You see it in viral videos where a pet makes a funny face or does a funny act that is actually totally normal or expectable in the animal world, but the humans recording it see it as a human act, a human face. They can’t see it any other way.

I don’t have emotional goggles filtering what I see. They see reality plus a whole other layer distorting it, because they’re living in their human–human interaction world, where things are done for social benefit, where their brains are programmed to think in the way that best connects them to other humans.’

At age 20, I stated:

‘Whatever benefit they’re seeing from being smothered by a dog, it’s just nonexistent in my mind. There isn’t one. Their benefit is some weird emotional connection that isn’t based in reality or in logic. They just want “love”, or, like, the perceived love they receive.

I could never love or see love in a survivalistic animal whose brain I already know how works. It’s all just basic stuff. I know the animalistic desires, because I studied biology, so there is no humanly love to be had. It’s nothing even like that.

I know for a fact that what animal-lovers are seeing is made up, so I can’t feel anything but annoyance at them for not being analytical, seeing the truth, doing a bit of research.

Well, then you dive into that rabbit hole of all the reasons I hate pets. Let’s not mention how most people don’t know or don’t care about the origins of breeds and the horrible ways they were created or the horrible conditions they’ve been left with, all for human pleasure. It’s bollocks.’

At age 19, my friend stated:

‘I could never have a relationship with an animal, because they’re other animals, so it doesn’t make sense. I get nothing out of it, can’t even converse. It confuses me when people talk about animals being their friends. What sort of friendship is that? It’s nonsense.

Now, we know what their standards are like. They’re the same people who have “best friends”, and they can’t even tell them the slightest thing that may be societally controversial, people who have friends that “get pissed off at you” for voicing a fundamental fact.

They don’t know what a friend is, hence they’re friends with animals as well. No surprise there.’

At age 20, I responded in a voice message to various excerpts from a YouTube edutainment video titled ‘Your Cat Questions Answered! | Compilation’:^[6]

‘”The most popular theory, however, is that kneading is a neotenic behaviour, a juvenile trait that is retained in adulthood.”

It’s mammary. It’s the same reason they meow.

“Because kittens knead their mothers bellies to stimulate milk production. This would explain why some adult cats also suckle whatever it is that they’re kneading.”

There you go.

“However, adult wildcats do not knead.”

There you go.

“So why have domesticated cats retained this trait? Well, neotenic behaviours are most often found in domesticated animals like house cats, partly because, over the millennia, humans have selected for traits that make animals more social …”

You used the wrong word there. “Social” is the wrong word.

“… Felis silvestris, the ancestor of all domestic cats, is a solitary hunter that only socialises with members of its own species when it’s time to breed.”

There you go. Exactly.

“… Unlike wildcats, though, domesticated cats have a lot of social behaviours as adults, because they’re not wild loners anymore.”

It’s funny how he’s calling that “social”. Our complete lack of emotion is the same lack of emotion that other animals have when they’re just going about their daily business. It’s the exact same reason they don’t do facial expressions and all this stuff to just random people.

I used to have this separation anxiety with my mother being present, but that just went away, so all they’ve done to domestic cats is basically broken that mechanism so that it persists into adulthood, and now they’re doing it with humans. That’s it. That’s literally it.

I mean, honestly, look. They don’t have the social mindset. They’re not treating you like humans treat other humans. They’re not treating you in that familial-love kind of way that regular humans treat their own family or strangers, indeed. A different mechanism is at play.

It just basically proves that they don’t really understand what they’re talking about when they try and call cats “social”, the words they use. They don’t really understand the concepts that they’re talking about.

“So their innate tendencies for snuggling with mom and hitting on m’lady cats are put to good use on us. Hence, kneading, originally a behaviour that kittens needed to survive, is now a way for adult cats to show that they trust you and feel safe.”

[In regards to “trust”] See? Look, exactly my point, hahaha. That’s not how it is.

“Have you ever wondered [why cats sit in boxes or other small containers]? Well, for one, it helps their anxiety. I know, considering they sleep 12 hours a day, they don’t really seem like anxious animals, but cats experience stress like any other animal.”

Yes. That’s a good point, in fact. This is why you have to separate “emotions”, the social-mindset, human emotions, from pre-human so-called “emotions”. It’s a really troubling word, because they’re not the same thing, you know.

Animals get anxiety. Just as I get anxiety, animals get anxiety. [The type of anxiety] is regulated by a completely different area of the brain. It’s not the same as human emotions that came about from the social mindset and are only present in humans and only came after that mutation in the Homo genus.

So yes, that’s a very good point, but there really needs to be a lot more clarity on that, on the delineation between those pre-social-mindset so-called “emotions” and post-social-mindset “emotions”.

“Sitting in a box, cats feel like they’re in a protected place where they can observe and hunt without worrying about being attacked. This makes sense, because cats are ambush predators …”

This is another mistake these people make. They always attribute pets’ behaviours to so-called “wild instincts” or so-called, “This is how they are in the wild, so that’s how they’re behaving in your house.”

But regular people, because they’re so wrapped up in their human social mindset: it never really gets through to them like that. It doesn’t really work out.

They always imagine that the cat must… They wonder why the cat doesn’t get on with the human ways. They wonder why the cat doesn’t break out of those wild behaviours and why it doesn’t just learn the human way or learn to be more “caring” or more… I don’t know, just more human, you know. Hahaha, it’s so stupid, honestly, just talking about it, but anyway.

The reason is not because of so-called “wild instincts”; the reason is because they literally live in the wild. When you put them in a house, they’re not in a human world; they’re still in the wild. You just put them in a building.

I mean, imagine what a house means to a cat. What does a house mean to a cat? It’s just a building. It’s just this big old place that has a roof; clearly, there’s no more rain getting to the cat, no more wind.

It has a load of nooks and crannies that the cat can find protection in, and obviously, the cat’s going to learn that predators don’t really hang around the house. There aren’t really any in the house, but you know, it’s always going to be on guard, because it’s never going to learn the actual human purpose of the house, because the house only came about after the social mindset.

It’s a lawless world. As far as the cat’s concerned, it’s a lawless world. There is no guarantee for protection. There just isn’t. There’s no law; there’s no punishment; nothing. Your defence is all in your own hands.

I don’t know why they can’t step into that mindset, because I’m there. I’m literally in that mindset. I can understand exactly the lawless, cultureless, societyless mindset where everything is just practical and about defending yourself and about you.

But they can’t understand that, because they have the social mindset. They’re trapped in the social mindset.

So phrasing it like that: what it does is it proves, first and foremost, that they have such a separated mindset from that that they have to pass it off as, in quotes, “wild” and “instinctive” and “instinctual” and “predator instincts” and all that instead of it just being as it normally is, because it’s the norm.

It’s the norm across every animal and for me as well, because I lack the social mindset. Only when you get the social mindset is it broken, is it suddenly no longer the norm.

I don’t know why they can’t just phrase it as just being practical or looking out for oneself, because that’s what humans are shit at. They’re shit at looking out for themselves.

What happened when the social mindset came about: it completely fucked up that mechanism for looking out for yourself. Instead, it’s all about looking out for the other people at the expense of yourself, such that [there is now] recreational drug use, social trends that cause harm, everything. It all just happened.

None of that in the animal kingdom. It’s all about the self and preserving the self.

It’s so logical. It’s so logical. Why wouldn’t the cat be doing this or that? It’s so logical for the individual. They don’t understand logic for the individual. They only understand logic for the greater society.

“To better understand how boxes help cats calm down, one study … observed a group of cats that had just arrived at a new animal shelter. New environments can be difficult for cats, so stress levels were pretty high.”

Just like me [and those with autism^[7]].

Why would you not stand at the corners of the room rather than in the middle? Obviously, the cats are going to be cowering in a safe place. Why would you not? It is the most logical thing to do for the individual when you’re in an unknown area, and you’re trying your best to preserve yourself at all costs.

The cat can’t trust humans. It doesn’t have that. Why would it? Why would it, when it’s only looking out for itself? Nothing else matters except for the preservation of the self, so why would it not? Honestly, why is any other option other than standing in the corner of a room an option?

But that’s the thing; that kind of stuff only exists in humans, that contemplation that one could potentially stand somewhere that’s not safe in the middle of a new room with new living beings all walking around, all present in the area, and somehow be okay with that.

That idea is only compatible with the human mindset. It’s not compatible in the animal mindset and not compatible with me.

“[It took the cats without boxes nearly 5 times longer (2 weeks) to reach the same reduced stress levels,] so, especially in high-stress situations, it’s important for cats to have an enclosed space to retreat to and feel protected. This is also true of large cats like tigers and jaguars.”

There you go. Regular people probably would’ve brought up that very argument, probably would’ve tried to suggest that, you know, bigger animals, hahaha, because they’re bigger and more imposing that they feel like they have more power and won’t cower away. “Oh, it’s only a small cat.”

But nope. It’s the mindset. It’s the lack of the social mindset. That’s what makes them go out to preserve themselves and do these behaviours. It’s not just about how big or ferocious they are, for god’s sake.’

At age 21, I stated, ‘Had to skip a part [of a video] where [someone] brought a dog up. I basically have to do that in all videos now, when the person brings up a pet. I have to skip most content of pets. It’s far too cringe.’

At age 21, my friend stated:

‘The social mindset does present as schizophrenia, especially compared to us, It’s not real. It’s not reality.’

I replied, ‘Yes, because they create stuff out of nothing, see stuff that isn’t there, see human intent and agency where there isn’t any, like in nature or an animal.’

My friend replied, ‘It’s a whole delusion, completely missing the mark about what people are and what they’re doing. They’ve invented a fantasy for who people are.’

My friend then sent a YouTube video of a woman and a small snake titled, ‘Adorable Snake Is So Affectionate With Her Mom | The Dodo Soulmates’.^[8]

His point in sending the video was not to do with the title but rather the woman in the thumbnail, however I replied, ‘No no no. That makes me feel sick. That’s some of the worst I’ve ever seen.’ My friend replied, ‘Ignore the title.’

I continued, ‘A fucking snake being affectionate. What in the fuck?’ My friend replied, ‘Hahaha, I didn’t even see that. The point was the photo.’

I continued, ‘It’s a fucking reptilian brain, a basal ganglia and a brainstem.’ My friend replied, ‘HAHAHA, well exactly.’

At age 21, my friend stated:

‘People call animals best friends. It’s important, because when we say we are friends, that’s what it is seen as. It’s taken down to that level. That’s what they consider a friendship to be.

And of course, their human relationships might as well be the same as that. Ironically, they’re about as bad as the animal relationship, so actually, being friends with a dog is actually on the same level.

A dog and human are candidates on the same level for them, whereas for me, I’ve risen up, and to me, a dog and a regular human are non-candidates on the same level as each other, a level way below.

The shit so-called friends put them through parallels what a dog puts them through with their smell, loudness and defecation and burden. The level of sincerity and connection is one that a dog is able to fulfil to them, so it speaks for the one they have with humans.

It’s a perceived illusion of a connection and not an actual connection or relationship based on raw views and practical compatibility, because the dog doesn’t actually fulfil it. They only think it does. It’s a made-up simulation that only humans can perceive, and animals have absolutely no clue that such a process is taking place in a human brain network.

They claim it is for the animal’s benefit, but it’s actually for their own emotional benefit of seeing something they perceive to be better for that animal being carried out, the basis of “better” being what would be better for them in that situation. They then imagine the reward [the animal is] feeling and feel it.

[Dogs and regular humans are] both items that cause a human that emotion. That is the basis of the relationship, anything that looks like it has a free will and shows brainstem responses, anything else that appears to have the same phenomenon of consciousness and that appears to have meaning or agency behind their actions and that appear to experience the attached emotions.

That’s why they’re candidates on the same level, not because what they are objectively but based on the internal-response parameter of their own, which has nothing to do with the animal. The basis is an internal one, not external, whereas with us, it is based on what that person objectively is, and a dog is objectively a bacterial vector.’

At age 21, I sent a screenshot of a prompt on an Instagram story that read, ‘Tell me a secret.. that you don’t mind me reposting’, with the input, ‘It hurts my feelings that my girlfriend’s dogs don’t like to go on walks with me alone.‘ I remarked, ‘Now, that’s utterly pathetic.’

At age 22, I sent a screenshot of a YouTube comment that stated, ‘Do you think there’s regions of the world where animals look at us as these strange gentle creatures? That they know we don’t mean to be monsters?’ I remarked, ‘No; we see you as interfering buffoons.’

References

1. ^ Horror Stories (2018-06-26). "Virginia Woman Mauled by Pet Pit Bulls". YouTube.
2. ^ Jake Roper (2018-10-05). "This Video Went Terribly Wrong". YouTube.
3. ^ "A Colorado pit bull infected humans with the plague". Washington Post. 2015-05-01. (Archive version from 8 September 2020.)
4. ^ Roberts, Michelle (2012-01-25). "Dogs 'higher Lyme disease risk'". BBC News. (Archive version from 16 September 2020.)
5. ^ ^{a b} "Sphynx cat". Wikipedia. 2020-10-27.
6. ^ SciShow (2019-10-30). "Your Cat Questions Answered! | Compilation". YouTube.
7. ^ American Psychiatric Association (2013-05-22). "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.)".
8. ^ The Dodo (2019-02-04). "Adorable Snake Is So Affectionate With Her Mom | The Dodo Soulmates". YouTube.
9. ^ The Dodo (2019-02-15). "Woman Rescues A Grasshopper And Gives Her The Best Life Ever | The Dodo Soulmates". YouTube.

< Back to Presentation and progression