Pets worth tens of thousands of dollars were thrown on the street before the Chinese New Year
There are many ways to celebrate the New Year for pets, and spending more or less money does not measure the love and responsibility of human beings.
Author | Ari
Edit | DR
题图 | Unsplash
When the Spring Festival was two weeks away, Xiao Ai picked up a cat in the community where she lived.
It was a shorthair cat, and the market price was more than 2,000 yuan. According to neighbors, he has been wandering in the community for a while, not only hungry and thin, but also injured by other stray cats. Xiao Ai was surprised: "Why are even breed cats starting to be abandoned?"
Because it was inconvenient to have a cat in a shared house, she started looking for suitable adopters for cats online.
Surprisingly, she thought that it would be easier for breed cats to find adopters, but even though many friends forwarded messages for her, there were still very few people who came to consult. Moreover, the big data of social software began to recommend free adoption-related posts to her, and many of them were posters who wanted to give up after buying a breed of cat.
In fact, the period before the Spring Festival is often the peak period for pet abandonment. Migrant workers want to return to their hometowns, and pets left in the city where they work become a problem. Every New Year, there is no shortage of posts on the Internet about "what to do if you can't take your pet away during the New Year", some people sell it at a low price and give it away for free, and some people simply abandon it.
Someone posted that they had picked up a breed cat. (Photo/Screenshot of Xiaohongshu)
To a large extent, this is also hidden under the hot pet economy in recent years, another extremely ironic reality - the person who is willing to spend money for you may not be willing to pay the same love and responsibility.
You see, the upstairs and downstairs of the community have drawn a distinct class division for pets, once the eyes are removed from the stray cats downstairs, the pet concentration of the shovel officials will be thick to overflow, all for the "master" to buy the best, the New Year to buy New Year's goods for pets, even the holiday has developed a business. From door-to-door feeding of dozens of yuan a day to a "pet boarding park" of up to 1,000 yuan a day, and then to the consignment service of public transportation, all of them are to let pets be taken care of.
On the one hand, there are shovelers who are willing to pay a high price for their furry children, and on the other hand, more and more abandoned pets are in the city, and even the New Year only belongs to humans, and there is a "difference in the world" between pets.
01 Keeping pets and burning money endlessly
The different ways of celebrating the New Year show the impermanence of the fate of pets.
The Spring Festival for some pets is full of rituals. A year ago, pet New Year's clothing was selected as one of the top ten fastest-growing "new" New Year's goods on Tmall for the first time. Jingdong's "2023 Pet New Year Goods Consumption Trend Report" shows that pet New Year decorations increased by 115% year-on-year, and pet Chinese New Year's Eve meal sales increased by 64% year-on-year.
The main cute pet couplets. (Photo/Screenshot of Xiaohongshu)
The "hairy Chinese New Year's Eve rice" that shovel officials can buy has more than 150 yuan of raw bone and meat, and there are also 20 yuan a box of "pet dumplings". But this type of food seems to be more for the needs of humans to take pictures. A woman with both cats and dogs told New Weekly: "Before, my dog ordered a cake on his birthday, and it was not as good as canned food, but then I was indifferent to this kind of bells and whistles pet food." ”
Not to mention, some people spend 100 yuan to get a haircut for themselves, but they are willing to pay the same or even higher price to give their furry child a bath and care. During the Spring Festival, pets should also wear "New Year's robes" and spend hundreds of thousands of yuan on beauty and photoshoots.
The price of pet grooming and photo is not cheap. (Photo/Screenshot of related stores on the group buying platform)
At the festive juncture of the Chinese New Year, a group of pets enjoy the love of humans, while another group of pets have to face the difficulties of life, including even breeds of cats and dogs worth tens of thousands.
How much does it cost to raise a pet? Many people don't seem to be mentally prepared for this, they only know that it costs a few thousand yuan to buy a breed of cat or dog, but they don't know that after buying a pet, it will also cost a lot of money to eat, drink and play pets.
According to the "2023-2024 China Pet Industry White Paper", in 2023, the average annual consumption of a single pet dog will be 2,875 yuan, and the average annual consumption of a single pet cat will be 1,870 yuan. It's not a huge spend, of course, but the cost of having a pet is continuous. Not to mention that once the pet is sick, the treatment cost is thousands of yuan for minor illnesses and tens of thousands of yuan for major illnesses, and the money spent is enough to buy another breed of pet.
Then, once the pet is measured by the attributes of the commodity, whether to be responsible for the pet to the end has become a double test of the wallet and conscience.
Abandoned breed cats, homeless. (Photo/Screenshot of Xiaohongshu)
Miki from Guangzhou told New Weekly: "I feed stray cats in the community every night, and in the past few years, before the Chinese New Year, I will see new breeds of cats stray in the community. She analyzed: "Some people just think that cats are just commodities and don't want to continue to spend money on them. ”
No matter how much money an owner has invested in their pet, they may abandon the pet when they don't want to continue investing. For them, the money that has been invested is the "sunk cost", and quietly throwing the pet on the street is the "timely stop loss".
02 If you can't take it away, throw it away?
Recently, someone posted a complaint: "I have seen a lot of people say that they can't take their cats home for the New Year, and they also have a sad music to say that they want to give up." ”
The reason is that if you want to find a way to really let your pets spend the New Year with peace of mind, it will be expensive and troublesome for migrant workers who return to their hometowns, and there are always people who choose to abandon them in the face of these reality tests.
It's good to take your furry children home for the New Year, but public transportation is not very tolerant of pets, and even if there is a pet consignment service, the news of various consignment accidents is inevitably worrying.
On the way home, it is better to be able to bring your pet with you. (Photo/"A Dog's Mission")
Compared with consignment, taking pets in the car is more reassuring for pet owners. Recently, Guangzhou Public Transport Group has launched three pet cat lines, allowing passengers to bring cats on the bus, but only to reach Sanshui, Zhongshan, Dongguan Nancheng. Qualified young people will also choose to drive or hitchhike, but it is not easy to take pets to migrate long distances, not only to test whether pets can endure eating, drinking and lazing, but also to be careful whether they will get motion sickness and stress.
Therefore, pet boarding services are extremely popular during the holidays. The New Weekly reporter consulted a pet hospital, and the other party said that the cost of foster care rose by 50% during the Chinese New Year, and the service of about 70 yuan a day is just to provide a cage for pets that can only be turned over.
The excrement shovelers who feel sorry for their pets will look for a more "humane" foster care agency for their furry children. According to the company's investigation, in the past three years, more than 2,000 companies (including studios) that provide pet boarding services have been established. Some pet stores provide services, although the place is not large, but can take care of the health of pets in a timely manner, and can also release pets out for activities every day.
In the foster "hotel" with better conditions, pets can enjoy a separate small room. (Photo/Screenshot of Xiaohongshu)
Pet hotels and pet boarding parks are more luxurious options. According to the account of a pet boarding hotel in Huadu, Guangzhou, the price of a standard single room of about 1 square meter is 128 yuan/day, while a large room that can accommodate 4 cats costs 248 yuan/day, and the monthly subscription ranges from 2,500-3,500 yuan. More than 200 rooms for the Spring Festival foster care service were fully booked as early as January 20.
However, there is no shortage of pet shop owners on social platforms to report that some people send their pets to the foster care and ignore them, and neither come to pick up the pet after the expiration date, nor renew the foster care.
In the final analysis, the business around pets mainly serves the convenience of human beings, and when humans feel inconvenient, the Spring Festival has become the peak period for abandoning pets.
03 There is only one reason for abandonment
It is a well-established fact that abandoned domestic cats are the largest source of stray cats. When more and more people choose to buy pets that match their favorite colors, breeds, and appearances, then in the foreseeable future, more and more pets will be thrown away as disposable goods, even if they are valuable breed cats.
For this reason, for those who want to have pets, many people are calling for "adoption instead of buying".
An abandoned Garfield short mixed-breed cat has now found a new home. (Photo/@无忧肥猫)
The founder of "Lucky Native Cat", a stray cat rescue agency in Beijing, shared a set of data: their adoption center helps two to three hundred stray cats find a home every year, and in 2021, breed cats accounted for 3% of them, and in 2022, the proportion of breed cats increased to 11%. "There has been a noticeable increase in the number of breeds of cats entering the adoption center. ”
Since the breed cat can become an Internet celebrity, it will one day be outdated. When the ragdoll cat was the hottest, the price was tens of thousands, but now you can buy one for a few hundred yuan, which is not so good. In 2023, some Ragdoll cats will also enter the "Lucky Native Cat" adoption center. Recently, some netizens picked up the golden gradient cat that has been very popular in the past two years.
When a life is priced, it can easily be treated as a consumer product. When a person buys a breed of pet, he can be full of joy, and when he doesn't like it, he may also abandon it without burden.
Some people don't want to keep it, so they just throw the cat away. (Photo/"Thirty Only")
In Guangzhou, Miki and Snake have been working as stray cat rescue volunteers for more than 4 years, adhering to the strategy of "TNR first, adoption secondary". TNR is the capture, neutering and release of stray cats to reduce the impact of stray cat breeding on the natural environment. At the beginning of 2022, they set up the "Worry-Free Fat Cat House" to shelter stray cats that need to recuperate after neutering.
Not all stray pastoral cats are suitable for domestication, only those cats of relatives, the "worry-free fat cat house" will try its best to find adopters for them before they are released.
Some stray cats are even more affectionate than domestic cats. (Photo/@无忧肥猫)
However, breed cats are naturally bred to have a tame character, they have no wandering experience since childhood, and their ability to survive in the wild is very weak. Some cats don't even know what to eat, and even gnaw on dead leaves and plastic bags when they are hungry.
No matter how valuable they were at the beginning, after being abandoned, there is not much difference between breed cats and pastoral cats. A cruel fact is that people will also look at their appearance when adopting pets, and after the Internet celebrity breed is outdated, not only the appearance may not be liked by most people, but it will be neglected because it is too delicate and troublesome to take care of.
Some breeds of cats also have a high probability of genetic diseases, such as folded ears. (Photo/"Soul Town")
Miki said: "In general, breed cats are easier to adopt than pastoral cats, and solid color cats are relatively easy to find in pastoral cats, and the most difficult to find adopters are tanuki cats and three-flowered cats. ”
But this rule is not absolute, in the "worry-free fat cat house", there is Garfield who has stayed for a long time and has not found an adopter. Due to Garfield's special appearance, the tear duct is naturally compressed, and it is easy to tear and form tear stains, and some people who come to consult are persuaded to quit as soon as they hear that they need daily care.
Miki points out that many people prefer to adopt kittens, but adult cats have more stable personalities. (Photo/@无忧肥猫)
The cost of TNR for stray cats is mainly borne by Miki and Snake themselves, but "generating electricity for love" is inevitably taken for granted by others. After the cat is adopted, they are most afraid of hearing the news that the other party is going to retire.
"I can't raise it, I'll tell you first. "My girlfriend is afraid of cats, can you retreat here?" "I don't have time to care about these (cats) after I have children." "I see someone feeding the cat downstairs in my house, can I send the cat over?" There are various reasons for retiring, but in fact, there is only one core: "I don't want to raise it anymore." ”
Often in these moments, they are worried that the cat will be thrown away, and they will still take the cat back and find a suitable adopter for it. In order to reduce the occurrence of retirement and abandonment, the "worry-free fat cat house" can only judge whether a person can be responsible for a small life through preliminary questionnaires, interviews and other methods. "If you don't have the determination to be responsible for your pet for the rest of your life, don't have a pet," Miki said. ”
The appearance of the same cat before and after being rescued is completely different. (Photo/@无忧肥猫)
This Spring Festival, Ah Snake prepared Spring Festival couplets, freeze-dried and cat strip snacks for the furry children of the cat house. The Cat House also offers foster care services, "We will prefer cats that have been adopted from the Cat House to come back for foster care, especially if the adopter has been away for more than two weeks. If it is less than two weeks, we will advise home feeding. Because for cats, it is best to stay in a familiar environment. ”
There are many ways to celebrate the New Year for pets, and spending more or less money does not measure the love and responsibility of human beings. But taking responsibility for a life should have been the first lesson humans had to learn when they chose to live with animals.
Proofreader: Yang Chao, Operation: Lu Zirui, Typesetting: Liang Ningyan
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