A kitten recently lost its life through the negligent care of my 11-year old niece last Tuesday. When I first saw the kitten, I asked her mother (Sis-in-law) why did she adopt such a young kitten for the little girl. It didn't look any older than 2 months and was still probably still suckling milk though it could take solids. Her mother replied that the girl wanted to take care of a growing kitten and not an adult cat (she had earlier 'adopted' two adult cats, one ran away after probably mis-handling by this girl).
Immediately, I sensed a problem here. This girl (from my point of view) is very pampered with no sense of responsibility towards animals. Her own Shi-Tzu is being cared for by the two maids who were hired to look after the house and the aging grandparents. Both mother and daughter only show up in the picture when the dog needs to go for treatment at the vet. Otherwise, its "auto-cruise" as far as management and care responsibilities goes.
Couple this with her mother being a Born-again Christian, who had been taught to 'share' her beliefs extremely assertively, I sensed double-trouble brewing here. It is strange that I'm upset when I'm not the kitten's adopter but I guess I'm outraged and sad at the avoidable loss of life as a Buddhist and a person who cares about the welfare of others including animals.
The last time I saw this kitten alive was last Saturday when we went over for a DIY noodle dinner. The girl had just fed the kitten and she was more interested on what's being played on her laptop thus leaving the kitten to wander around the house unattended. The Shi-Tzu immediately pounced on the kitten once the kitten was on the floor. I was standing at the main door, about to leave when I saw this and called out the dog to stop it. My missus said that we should observe for a while to see what the dog was about to do before leaving.
We saw that the dog just wanted to play with the kitten and seem to groom the kitten in the process. I guess its natural as both 'Shit'-Tzu and kitten sleeps in the same room as the "owner". There is another bigger dog, a mongrel, outside the house and this guy is bored out of its brains being tied for most of the time. No one in the house has time to take it for walks so it tends to just dash out the front gate at every opportunity.
It was this bigger dog that disembowelled the kitten that Tuesday. Kitten was just exploring around the kitchen when it got too close to the kitchen door, this big dog was untied, lunged and grabbed the kitten before anyone could react. My kids weren't around then and by the time they had arrived, the kitten's dead and buried in the ground! My boys said that their aunt and cousin cried at the loss of the kitten. My concern now is how this impacts the girl? Is she going to hate the bigger dog? Or is she going to learn to be more morally responsible towards all animals? Actually, are both going to be more morally responsible in their actions and decisions?
I happened to be "recycling" through 4GBs of Ajahn Brahms' talks recorded by BSWA when this happened and in one of these, he related how this huge, Northern Irish prisoner in a local (Perth) prison, who learnt to hurt others at the tender age of 7, became a vegetarian when he saw how a cow quietly lined up at the prison's slaughter house, looked at him and shed tears as he was getting ready to stun and kill it.
I took this opportunity to teach both my boys that they too should remember that animals are beings that feel fear and joy like us even though they don't look nor speak like us. They must treat every living being with respect and care. We should also apply the same to other people even though they don't agree with us or believe in the same stuff as we do.
Sadly, there are groups who disguises ideologies as religion/spirituality, teach and encourage its members to treat others with fear and negativity if these "souls" do not accept their "beliefs".
To help myself over this loss, I ended up visualizing the kitten being reborn as a human, ordaining as a Sangha and guiding my Born-again in-laws back to the Dhamma. :D
