Meow.

Here’s a rant that’s been building up inside me for a bit. Enjoy. (Heh.)

One of the things I love about Freecycle is that there’s a chance of acquiring some really cool stuff that someone else would otherwise just toss away. We got a fabulous pasta maker recently (a manual one, I mean) that we had been wanting to buy, but couldn’t justify the price, and we’ve picked up assorted other things in the past year or so. Mostly, we’ve used it to get rid of things – and it’s a really good feeling to give something to someone else, knowing they’ll put it to good use and that it will likely not end up in the landfill. One woman’s trash is another woman’s treasure, of course.

The Freecycle group that I belong to has over 2,200 members – that’s a lot of people! – and it goes without saying that there are times when I feel myself getting antsy and twitchy about some of the items being posted and some of the ways in which people phrase their ‘requests’. My hackles go up when I see someone post that they “NEED: DIGITAL TREADMILL” or some other equally expensive item, but then I remind myself that a) you don’t know if you don’t ask, b) someone might actually be wanting to get rid of their expensive item for free, and c) who am I to judge someone’s “needs”? Still, the standard way of asking/giving is: WANTED: X and OFFER: X and I get all judgemental when someone “NEEDS” something. I try to ignore that feeling, but it’s hard when they’re “need” is something no one really NEEDS in life (“digital cable box” is another one..)

Quite some time ago, around the time that I joined Freecycle, there was a really big debate about whether or not to allow people to post animals/pets as an offer/wanted. One side was opposed to it, the other wholeheartedly endorsed it.

An example in the “for it” column: people had a fresh litter of kittens available to good homes. That’s the way I always acquired my pets as a kid (cats, in particular) – not through Freecycle, but the “FREE KITTENS” signs at the end of the farm driveways in our area. It’s certainly better than someone just ditching the animals “out in the country” (or at the side of a road somewhere) to fend for themselves, and it’s definitely better than keeping more animals than you can comfortably handle/afford. We even adopted our spiny mice from a Freecycle family, and they’ve had a wonderfully happy home with us ever since.

On the “against” side – how the hell does the average person determine a “good loving home” for their excess pet(s)? Is it the first person to show up? The first one with a really good sob story? The first one who paints a lovely picture of their tiny daughter who has always wanted a kitten/puppy/mouse? There were discussions about how small animals are often picked up en masse for the care and feeding of pet snakes. There were animal-abuse stories posted. Someone would mention how the local Humane Society would happily take unwanted animals, someone else would argue that the HS was too expensive (both to the person surrendering and to the person who might adopt), and how they would euthanize unadopted animals very quickly. There was also the argument that animals, much like people, shouldn’t be treated as a commodity.

In the end, and after some really heated discussions between members, the moderator put it to a poll. And the posting of animals “free to a good home” and “cat/dog/whatever wanted” postings continued.

Having adjusted to the idea that the animal offerings were going to stay, I pretty much started to ignore them. I do see some strange and unusual requests that pique my curiosity, but in all truth, the fewer, “Free: seven new kittens!” and “Free: eight year old cat” postings that enter my brain, the happier we all are in our tiny house. I am a bleeding heart when it comes to this sort of thing, and I know that we don’t have room for many more animals than we already have. Unless we put the beagle up on Freecycle.. Hmmmm!

But my new issue is with people who are obviously adopting these animals (or animals from other places) without a single care in the world for how they’re going to actually look after them. They request food and they request brushes and leashes and cages and exercise balls for hamsters and litter boxes and cat toys and, my favourite of all time, they request ALL OF THE ABOVE in the form of, “We just adopted a kitten today and don’t have any of the supplies we need. So, we urgently need food/litter/claw post/litterbox. We have no car to pick these items up, so we’d appreciate having them delivered.”

I try really hard not to be judgemental, but… HELLO?! What the hell were you thinking?

I hate the idea that some animal is going to suffer because you’re an idiot. Can you afford the vet bills? Can you afford to make sure your animal is licenced, fed properly, has immunizations and medical treatments and to board the animal if you’re going away? Or will you be offering that same pet up, a few months from now, when it’s completely out of control, sick or costs you more money? What if your pet has an accident and requires surgery or serious medical care? It breaks my heart to think about this – and yet, at least once a week, it’s in the foreground of my thoughts.

I wish people weren’t so incredibly selfish – that they’d consider the needs of the animal before deciding that they “deserve” to adopt an animal. Melle once posted a really profound breakdown of the cost to adopt a pet from the Humane Society versus a free-to-a-good-home pet – and when I read it, I wanted to post it to the Freecycle group. Then I realized that the people who should read it, won’t. They’re also the same people who won’t vaccinate their dog, won’t license them, won’t train them at all – so the cost of adoption vs free is totally moot anyway.

Bleh.