Pet ads
There’s an ad I pass when running errands that just bums me out every time I see it. It’s on the side of a bus stop, and it’s a three-panel comic depicting a person taking a new job in another country and being forced to give up their cat for adoption. The last panel is the cat behind bars (presumably in an adoption facility).
I can’t find a version of it online, but I wouldn’t really want to link to it, as it’s the saddest thing of all time.
Maybe it’s me, but I can’t imagine being in a position where I would give up my pets for a job – or for anything else, really. Just tossing your pets aside seems incredibly callous and cruel. All they want is to eat and be loved, and putting them up for adoption because they don’t exactly fit into your lifestyle is pretty mean. I would much rather turn down a job if it meant I had to give up my cats.
And just as a tangent, I really hate ads like that. Yes, they’re meant to pull at your heartstrings and get you to adopt, but it’s almost too much. If either my girlfriend or I are watching TV and one of those commercials with that Sarah McLachlan song comes on, the channel gets changed immediately.
Anyway.. yeah. Maybe I’ll make an actual post soon.
1 comment
Animal ads and commercials are always such ridiculous examples of appealing to emotion… as if it were designed specifically for Cat lady divorcees.
I will say that I have two wonderful adopted animals, one of which was adopted because the owners had to move to Germany for a job and didn’t want to torture the dog on a plane for 20 hours.
The ads are awful and stupid… I am watching something like “Ow, my balls!” and then I have to watch some dog with a missing eyeball and mouth cancer. Seriously, I don’t feel guilty. I have two dogs that have the best lives in the world. I moved to a house with a huge yard just for them. They get the best of everything. Some pets are lucky, and some are not, just like humans. It is the luck of the draw for them, and it will never change.