Feral Fur-friends

When we think of pets generaly we often don't give a thought to the millions of our Fur-friends all over the world whom have gone feral.

A pet is a loved and wanted domesticated or tamed animal and what this means is that to be considered a pet, an animal must be under the care of a owner whom really has it's welfare at heart. With the above said about the ideal pet we might now want to ask a burning question about the dozens of domestic animals we often see roaming our streets homeless without the restraining leash while scavenging for sustenance amongst our waste bin, how did they revert to this primordial state of semi-wild beasts in an urban jungle? The answer to this question will be found in our individual and collective attitude towards animals, domestic or wild.

Very few pet owners understand the responsibilities involved with owning a pet and some times, our cultural views about certain animals strongly influences our attitude towards them. In West Africa for instance the domestic house cat has been badly portrayed in the genres of local folklore to the point of outright stigmatization as the Witches Alterego. When you own and care for a pussycat, have no guarantee that your nextdoor neighbour would do the same behind your backs. If anything, owning the domestic cat as a pet makes you liable to be suspected of witchcraft in certain African communities.

The same can be said of the dog to an extent particularly the ones with perculiarly coloured furcoats. A pure all black or white fur coloured dog would leave most folks with raised eyebrows in our rural Communities.

The above typically portrays the life of pets in rural environments but even in our cities with more enlightened folks we tend to encounter an even bigger population of our feral Fur-friends. We see them running across our risky highways exposed to the menace of speeding vehicles and in their more sedentary routines they can be found hanging around garbage dumps exposed to dangerous carcinogenic pollutants.

Nigeria and India, two very populous countries in the world boasts the highest population of feral pets and hardly no country on Earth not even the most developed nations are spared this shamful phenomenon of Fur-friends living in vagabondage. Truth be told, we as an intelligent species are to be blamed for not being able to care and properly accommodate our friends from the lower families of the animal kingdom whom we had in the first place adopted from their natural mode of living in the wild.

It's irresponsible to own a pet and starve it of it's much needed care hence forcing it into reverting to it's wild state. It's highly irresponsible to treat a feral pet aggressively like it's your most feared enemy when in truth your greatest threat comes from those of your own species. If we all as sensible humans could live with our animal friends, giving to them their much needed care and accommodation, there'll be less of the phenomenon I have come to call, our Feral Fur-friends.

CC @focusnow
CC @bright-obias
CC @whitestallion

NOTE
THIS POST WILL BE SHARED ON TWITTER.