Discourse on Pets

O.K..... for most of you who know me, this will probably not come as a surprise.... I am not an animal lover. I'm sure that puts questions in some of your minds about my character, or ability to love.
I did, at one point, love animals... like my first dog, Gypsie. I also remember when I was little, we lived in Idaho and had some rabbits. I would dress one up like a baby, or put it under my shirt and pretend I was pregnant.
The memories all go down hill from there. The next dog I loved, Tuffy, took on a wild animal more tough than he was. We found him dead on the porch one Sunday morning. Then there was, Muffins, our cat. Something happened to her, she got sick, and we watched her die for a week. Another cat, "Joe-Nathan short for Jonathan," as my sister had named him, climbed up an electrical post (one of those about 50 feet in the air), and we watched as he electrocuted himself, fell with back arched, and let out a horrible death meow. The sudden impact of hitting the ground started his heart back up again, and he jumped up and ran away for a few days. When he returned, he was never the same.... brain was fried. There's also our dog, Tiffany, a white, long haired Llasa Apso. She had big eyes that bulged... and one of her eyeballs popped out one day. Mom and Dad took her to the vet to have the socket closed up. She was then our one eyed dog, until the unfortunate incident that rendered her blind. Not sure exactly how it happened, just noticed her running after us with a dangling eyeball. Here's the worst of the memories... we had an Airedale dog, I don't even remember his name as I have probably psychologically blacked it out of my consciousness. Anyway, he got hit by a car and injured his back leg. Within a few days, he was acting really strange, so my mom was going to take him to the vet. We found him in my room, of all places, hunkered down in the corner. When my brother when to pick him up, an abscess the size of a grapefruit popped, spraying puss all over my stuff. Picture a zit the size of your head exploding in your room. Even years later I would pull a book off my shelf and have to separate the pages because of the incident.
Russ, has had his own painful encounters. His first dog, "Pinto Bean" ran away one day. It was devastating for him. Imagine the horror to find out years later that Pinto hadn't run away, but had actually been given away by his parents.
So maybe by now, you are understanding why I stopped having affections for animals. I'm not sure if I could get attached to one. I mean, sure, some of them are cute, but they all poop, and vomit and that just makes me sick... especially if it's in the house.
I will tell you, though who I am a lover of... orphans and the fatherless!!! You might be offended that it seems like I have put them in the same category as pets. That couldn't be further from the truth!! They are of so much more worth than that, but unfortunately, most American pets are cared for and loved on more than the orphans of the world. I keep seeing this commercial by Pedigree dog food. There's mournful music playing and this sad dog looking at you from behind his cage in the pound. The narrator says, "For every dog adopted, there is one who isn't.... that's why when you buy Pedigree, you are helping to... blah blah blah..."
Well, for all the lonely, longing children who will get adopted this year, there are 142.99 million who won't!