Have you made personal sacrifices when looking after your cat(s)?
Have you made personal sacrifices when looking after your cat? Even if you love cats dearly and enjoy caring for your cat or cats, there may come a time when because of various reasons, normally financial constraints, a person has to make personal sacrifices to do what is best for their cat. By sacrifices I mean forgoing something that a person would like to enjoy or possess in order to make sure she looks after her cat properly.
For many, or most, cat lovers it won’t feel like a sacrifice because they automatically do what’s best for their cat before seeing to their own requirements. The decision is made naturally without thought for balancing the demands of person versus cat.
However, a cat lover may have a conflict about how to do certain things. It is a conflict that comes about because a cat requires different things to a person.
What about buying a home? If there is a choice to be made, a home for a cat should have fairly easy access to a safe place the outside to enrich their environment. If a person wants a third floor flat in a location where there is a lot of traffic she should forgo that desire and choose somewhere quieter and on the ground floor. That is the kind of sacrifice I am referring to.
The usual sacrifices are financial. What if a person is an old lady and has trouble paying her heating bill. Her cat falls ill and a vet wants to charge £700 for treatment. This is potentially a competition that concerns the health and wellbeing of a cat and the cat’s caretaker.
Cat food is another example. A lot of ailurophiles have modest incomes, some are very low. They want to buy the best cat food but that would mean buying poorer quality food for themselves. Do they make that sacrifice? Yes, even true cat lovers sometimes have to make sacrifices but will accept them uncomplainingly.
I have more or less given up on holidays because I don’t want to put Charlie in a boarding cattery or hire a cat sitter. I bought a ground floor flat for him when buying any flat would have given me a much wider choice. These are sacrifices that I make automatically.