My Apology!

So sorry about your wife Daniel, we have lost loved ones at young ages too and it’s heartbreaking and impossible to understand why it happens to good people.
Going by the way you put your dates back to front to ours, it must have not been long before Christmas. We lost our beloved mother at that time of year and it seemed like all the world was happy but us.
Take care.

Nope, I’m afraid I never have. My wife had started on that website ancestry.com, but as I probably mentioned a few months ago, she passed away rather unexpectedly on 12/02/10 at the ripe old age of 45.

I do remember hearing something when I was a kid about a coat of arms, etc, but back in the early 60’s there were definitely less HUDSON’S running around than there are today as for whatever reason whenever we would move I’d always check the telephone book to see how many there were. Now I will admit that although I am definitely NO bigot, I was somewhat surprised the first time I saw/heard about a black HUDSON (i.e. Academy Award winning singer Jennifer HUDSON). It just seems to me that it has become a more and more common name in the last 20-30 years! For as long as I can remember when someone asked me my name I would always tell them, and then say, you know, like HUDSON river or HUDSON Bay! Still do!

Can I just stray from cats too for one more time and ask if you have researched your family tree Daniel ?
My hobby when I have time from animal welfare is genealogy and it’s fascinating.
Our family coat of arms which goes back as far as the 1600s is ‘Truth, Honour and Honesty’
(good adages to live by)

Hi Leah!

I absolutely LOVE the “Cheerio”! You know my last name is HUDSON, which is a very British/English name with a coat of arms, the works. My father (died in 1957) was an English Professor at Indiana University (in Bloomington, Indiana where I was born), and he was very big in poetry and just about anything English (both the language and the heritage).

Yes, Michael I realize this website is suppose to be all about cats, but I just couldn’t resist! I’ll try and stick to the subject for now on, OK?

Hi Dan. Takes a man to apologise and mean it so I was so pleased to see yours.

I’m all for education as it happens but clearly the vets that de-claw aren’t and thats why we are trying to ban it.

Thats all I have to say on the matter.

Cheerio.

Hi Daniel, no need to apologise, you are entitled to your own opinion and I do feel for the cat with the embedded collar, I am shedding tears for that cat right now.
I too have seen many sorts of horrific abuse in my vet nurse days.
I never did get hardened to it, I think I chose the wrong career, you have to be able to ‘shut off’
I have this thing called ‘Empathy’ which means I can ‘feel’ other peoples and animals suffering.
I will never change my opinion that declawing which is pre meditated abuse, is not suffering of the worst kind. Imagine walking on broken glass in your shoes, with no respite unless you lie down, that’s how many declawed cats feel all their lifetime.
But even if this surgery was without any complications, it’s wrong and that is because cats need their claws to live happy fulfilled lives and no animal should ever suffer any unnecessary pain.
I don’t know about your laws as I am in the UK and happy to see any new law passed here to protect animals. Everyone I know welcomed our Animal Protection Law, although sadly some don’t take heed of it.
I’m devastated right now after finding out about about 4 neglected cats in our neighbourhood.
People abusing animals is dreadful but vets abusing animals to make money is even worse. They can not be excused because of ignorance, they are the very people who trained to help animals.
Anyway, it’s nice talking to you as a friend now and thanks for your compliment to me on another PoC page for sussing out your multiple identities !

Wow Ruth, you obviously very intelligent and everything you say is well thought out. Thanks for the story about the man who immigrated here from Vietnam. Stories like that do make me feel a lot better about the things that occured over there. I’ve been extremely fortunate, no PTSD or agent oraange, or even nightmares, but I know lots others weren’t so lucky as I was.

Thank you Michael, you are a true gentleman and a scholar! I didn’t know that you were located in the U.K., not that it makes any difference whatsoever.

I am surprised that NO ONE has yet commented on the cat with the imbedded collar. Unfortunately, I have an update on that. The head of the adoption committee with HSoW contacted me shortly after I left that message on the website, and told me she was going to have to come pick up the cat. It seems that the person the cat actually belonged to was in the hospital or some type of rehab facility, and had allowed someone else to care for the cat and that was when the abuse and imbeded collar happened. When she was finally found and contacted, she wanted her cat back, which was fine since it was determined that she had no part in the abuse. Under the circumstances we had no choice but to return the kitty to her. I only wish that I had thought to take a picture for everyone, but it all happened within the course of about 4 hours, and during the 3 hrs he was at my house he stayed under the couch. It was the most amazing and disgusting thing I had ever seen on either a dog or cat (I have seen dogs with imbedded collars on TV only). His entire neck all the way to his front legs was shaved, and this bright red collar was flush with his skin just in front of the front legs, not further up on the neck where you would expect a collar to be. Because the collar was so far back I suppose that was the main reason that it became imbedded like it did. That, and the fact that the poor guy was practically just skin and bones was a real picture of suffering! Just unbelievable.
Having only know this cat for a few hours though, I believe if any cat has a great chance of overcoming this incredible abuse that he endured, it is he that will do it!

I want to say thank you for your service in Vietnam. Vietnam vets don’t get the recognition they deserve because so many opposed our presence there. I used to think we shouldn’t have been there, but I don’t anymore.

I recently met someone who had lived in South Vietnam in the 1970’s. He said everything was fine until they lost freedom, when the U.S. pulled out. After that they were starving. I said, “Weren’t you hungry before that?” He stated that no, they always had enough to eat. He said the only difference was the loss of freedom. After losing freedom they could still get rice, but never meat. Knowing he was slowly starving to death, he made the decision to come to America. He and about 30 other people came over here across the ocean on a tiny boat. (He says today if they all got back on that same boat it would sink, but back then they were all skin and bones, so they made it.)

A man who came to this country with nothing, half starved and not even speaking the language today owns his own beautiful house and has a wife and two kids. I was at a birthday party for one of his kids and we were standing in his garage enjoying cold beverages as he told this story. He looked around and said, “My house in Vietnam wasn’t even as big as this garage, and now look at all I have. I love America.”

Would he even have thought to come here were it not for the Americans who came and fought to keep him free on the other side of the world? Probably not. All he has today he owes to men like you who fought for freedom– and to his own willingness to take a risk and work hard once he got here, of course. That same freedom is still available to all in America who are willing to work hard and take some risks.

I oppose declawing, but like you I really, really don’t want the government involved. Once people become aware of what declawing is they won’t ask for it anymore. Vets will start to have some cognitive dissonance over the incompatibility of taking an oath to help animals and then routinely crippling cats. If a law banning declawing is enacted greedy vets will have brought it down on their own heads. Such a law should never have been necessary!

Laws are enacted when we refuse to behave as people worthy of freedom. We got minimum wage and child labor laws because of unbridled greed. Both laws should never have been necessary. I grew up in a tourist town where both were routinely ignored and I will tell you I almost always was paid significantly more than minimum and I and all my friends who started working at a young age are now very productive members of society. About the time I took my first job wages were rising because the low pay caused a severe labor shortage in the area. Businesses found they had to pay more. The free market works. But horrible abuses in the past caused laws to be enacted that should not be necessary– employers must behave as people worthy of freedom.

Abortion is quite similar to declawing . It should be a last resort in a very difficult situation after all other avenues have been considered. Too many women use it as birth control, having multiple abortions at great risk to their own health. Are they told of the risks or educated about better forms of birth control or do the doctors just pocket the money? Much the same as the declawing vets who don’t make it clear that it’s a surgery with real risks and better alternatives– they keep their mouths shut and pocket the money.

Normally people are at their best in their callings or vocations. When that becomes distorted and those in helping professions hurt instead they invite government intervention. Americans need to wake up and start behaving as people worthy of freedom. We’re not doing that. Many of us are using entitlements intended as a safety net as our hammocks and the country is paying the price in rocketing debt. We’ve become, for the most part, a lazy, selfish people unworthy of the freedom men like you fought to preserve.

Hi Daniel. Thanks for this. Apology accepted. Bob, the person you were insulting (in my opinion) is a good man.

I think that we have to be careful when joking just using words on a site because it can be easy to offend and give the wrong impression without body language etc. to clarify meaning and intention.

Well done in apologizing. That is good. Yeh..I do like a laugh too and I agree with what you say about education being the better option.

The trouble is it will take decades to re-educated the American people to stop mutilating their cats for their convenience. In the meantime there will be millions of more days of pain and suffering for the vulnerable domestic cat.

I for one can’t wait that long or accept that. Laws too are a form of training. Laws can alter habits.

Take wearing seat belts. It is a legal requirement here in the UK. People just buckle them up without thinking now but when they were first introduced people resisted.

I am pleased you are with us on declawing.