Pets Are No Great Moral Force

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

Of the editorial page staff

Published by the StarTribune

December 17, 1960

   MANY PARENTS will give their children pets this Christmas on the theory that they'll learn self discipline and responsibility by caring for them. The only thing wrong with this notion is that it's 80 percent cockeyed.

   I should know. I've given it a 26-year test, with the result that my wife and I have parceled out a ton or so of dog food, fed and administered last rites to innumerable goldfish, and helped keep a couple of parakeets in luxurious indolence.

   We've never had a cat, which is one fight I've won, and it's been a long time since we had a dog, but the pooch we had wouldn't have lived for 13 years unless we'd supplemented the irregular care provided by a son and daughter.

   THE PARAKEETS presently in residence are the property of our younger son. Ostensibly they are his responsibility. It is okay with him, however, if father mucks out the cage on Saturday morning when he is otherwise engaged. It's amazing how many important missions he has on Saturday. His conscience is eased, apparently, by his knowledge that I love the birds and am never happier than when playing chambermaid. If there are any parental rewards here I haven't detected them. The birds are eager eaters but too stupid to talk.

   There were three or four dogs in my childhood, several rabbits and a badger, none of which did anything startling toward steeling my moral fiber. The badger even failed to amuse me. It was every bit as sociable as you'd expect a badger to be and when it retreated under the woodshed, never to be seen again, I bore up quite well.

   OLD RED, the dog I best remember, was of humble origin but much admired by the gang because of his fighting ability. He lived to old age on chicken bones, table scraps and gophers, stuff that would kill today's pampered mutts within hours. Feeding the dog was my brother's job and mine, which meant that it was mother's.

   The rabbits were our responsibility exclusively. We got two of opposite sexes and expected their talent for multiplication would make us rich. This talent was arrested by starvation.

   WE ALWAYS had a cow around the place. One of these was a fractious beast that abhorred confinement and was named Pollyanna. She was glad the fence had only five strands of barbed wire.

   One particular bovine provided gave me more sense of responsibility and discipline than any dog ever did. I didn't have to milk the critter but father made it my job to take the cow to pasture a mile away every morning and fetch her back at night. When pop assigned a chore, he expected his progeny to deliver.

   I got quite attached to the cow, in a malevolent sort of way. She was nice to peg rocks at. But I don't suggest that anyone buy his child a Christmas cow. Something smaller is better, for urban living at least.

   THERE'S nothing wrong in buying a child a pet as long as you don't expect it to transform its little master. And I offer this prediction if you do buy him one. About mid-January mother will speak thus to her son: "All right, Jackie, forget to feed Rover once more--just once more--and out he goes. The dog is yours and you're to take care of him. Just remember that."

   So Jackie remembers for a day or two and then forgets again. It's odd, under the circumstances, that so few dogs are homeless--or it would be odd if parents weren't parents.

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