Would you help a stranger?

video

I was reading this morning about a man who was mauled by a pack of savage dogs a few days ago. He’s criticised passers-by who videoed and photographed the attack instead of helping him.

Apparently four American Staffordshire Terriers attacked him as he went to move his car near his flat in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton on Tuesday night.

The dogs attacked him from behind and surrounded him, inflicting many bite wounds in a frenzied 15-minute attack.

Eventually, with the help of a nearby security guard, witnesses pulled the dogs off Mr Tat and called the police.

“He was very upset that there were so many people around and no one helped him,” his son, Vi, told the Herald Sun.

“My father was very upset when he saw that they were taping the attack and not helping.”

He said he could hear his father’s screams from their 15th storey flat. – News.com.au

I know that there would be a danger in stepping into a situation like that but surely you’d do something more than try to create a viral Youtube hit.

Everything these days seems to be captured on video and it’s not always a bad thing but I’m wondering if that’s come at the expense of basic human kindness. Have we become so detached that we see the misfortune of others as an opportunity to whip out our smart phones or is it more about the growing trend to not get involved.

If you saw someone in danger would you video them or help? Have you ever stepped in to help a stranger? I’d love to hear your stories.



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Ducks and Dog Masks

This seems to be popping up all over the place but in case you haven’t seen it I thought I’d share it here. I couldn’t stop laughing. I hope you find it just as funny.



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Keeping Pets in Perspective

pet.jpgI don’t think I could imagine life without pets.

I grew up surrounded by cats and we always had a dog at our place. We have a cat at the moment and my son, James, has a couple of mice.

Pets are wonderful. We hear about studies from time to time that tell us how much healthier we can be if we keep pets. They’re great for company and can increase our general sense of wellbeing. I even heard of a recent study that said kids who grow up with a dog in the house are more resistant to a number of illnesses. I really do get the whole pet thing.

On the other hand, I get concerned about the importance some people place on their pets.

Seeing the poverty that people are facing in Haiti and Dominican Republic makes coming home pretty tough. It’s hard to see the amount of money that some people spend on animals here when people not so far from us can’t afford to put food on the table for their families.

So how do we think rightly about our furry and feathered friends?

Pets are wonderful but in the end they are just pets. They are not equal to children and talking about them as such devalues human life.

Charles Colson has written an interesting article for Christianity Today titled Keeping Pets in Their Place. In the article he reminds us that it was William Wilberforce, the man who fought so hard to abolish slavery, who founded the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1824. It is absolutely right that we treat all God’s creatures with respect (even the tasty ones) but Colson is concerned with the push to remove the distinction between animals and humans.

Christianity teaches that humans are unique in all of creation: we are conscious of our existence, aware of death, capable of works of great creativity, and the only part of creation that bears the image of God. Humans alone have eternal souls, which confers unique moral status.

Many animal-rights activists dismiss any distinctions between humans and animals as “speciesism,” which Princeton professor Peter Singer defines as “a prejudice” that favors “the interests of members of one’s own species … against those of members of other species.” If the material world is all there is, if humans are nothing more than the product of evolutionary forces, then they are essentially no different from pigs, dogs—or rats, as Ingrid Newkirk of PETA once famously said. Humans are merely the latest stage in evolutionary development.

Whether you look at it from a faith perspective or from a purely secular point of view, surely we need to maintain some kind of perspective. Animals are animals and while they are important to us and valuable in so many ways, they are not humans.

I was sent a survey this week from LinkMe which says that Australians put animals above people living with HIV/AIDS.

76% of Australians would offer their hand for voluntary work yet far more people would consider lending their time to help animals rather than people living with HIV/AIDS, according to the results of a survey conducted by leading career building and networking company LinkMe.com.au.

The survey of 1568 Australians revealed that whilst 13.8% of people believe people living with HIV/AIDS are in need of support, 40% of people are receptive to the plight of animals.

People recognise children as those most in need of additional services (46.6%) with sick and homeless people lagging at 23.5% and 26.1% respectively marginally ahead of people living with HIV/AIDS.

List of voluntary support for various groups:
Children (46.6%)
Animals (40%)
The elderly (36.9%)
Poor people (27%)
Disabled people (26.6%)
Homeless people (26.1%)
Sick people (23.5%)
People living with HIV/AIDS (13.8%)

Don’t you think that there’s something wrong with our priorities when we value the lives of animals above humans? At least children seem to rate higher than dogs.

So what do you think? Do we place too much emphasis on our pets? Is it morally right to lavish so much attention on our pets while the people of Haiti are literally eating dirt?

I think the song Angel by Everything But The Girl puts it well in talking about a young girl begging in the street.

And if she were a kitten
Someone would take her home
But we’ve no pity for our own kind
Our hearts are stone
Our eyes are blind

I know that pets are only one of the excesses of our society and that there are many other things we could and should sacrifice to allow us to better care for people both overseas and at home. It’s not easy to gain the right perspective on so many things when we aren’t faced with the reality of poverty every day.

Maybe we need to force ourselves to face the reality of life for people in developing countries and the poor in our own backyards, not to make ourselves feel guilty, but in order to equip ourselves to take some small but life saving steps towards serving those in need.



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Pet Names

dog.jpgOnce a month Dog Behaviour Consultant and Trainer, Kathy Kopellis McLeod, joins me during my morning radio programme on 98.5 Sonshine FM to talk about dog behaviour and answer questions from listeners.

We had a great time today. We took a slight detour from our regular chats and talked about the extra names we give our dogs. We weren’t talking about their real names, we were talking about the nicknames that our dogs seem to gather.

After a while, we widened the scope and started throwing in a few cat nicknames.

Dylan rang up to tell us that his dog, Nev, gets called everything from Bubby to Poop and lots more in between.

We had several other people call in and talk to us about the names their four-legged friends have acquired. The segment was a lot of fun with some very amusing ‘pet names’ for dogs and cats of all shapes and sizes.

I even told a few stories about how I’d named a couple of my pets. One was named after a fictional character created by comedian Grahame Bond, and another was named after one of the guys from the band GangGajang. Have a listen to the audio to hear the details.

What are some of the pet names that you’ve used for your pets? Are there any that you find too embarrassing to use when others are around? How did you come up with your pet’s real names and nicknames?

If you want to have a few laughs, just click the play button on the audio player at the bottom of this post.



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I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat

catandmouse.JPGWe’ve been hearing the pitter patter of very tiny feet at our place over the past few weeks.

James decided late last year that he’d like to keep mice and since then has read a few books and lots of websites to make sure that he would know just what to do if we allowed him to get some small furry friends.

Pauline and I decided that a couple of mice shouldn’t cause too many problems and that it could be good for a nine year old to learn to care for pets, so we gave him permission to get two females. We got a heap of mousy stuff from Freecycle and my sister purchased two mice for James as a late Christmas present.

I’m very much an animal person. I love cats, dogs and many other creatures but I’m yet to really warm to the mice. I don’t dislike them, I simply don’t really care for them.

Our cat, Gizmo, finds the idea very interesting. James has named the mice Tigger and Piglet but I think Gizmo might prefer to call them lunch and dinner. Mind you, she sometimes puts her nose up to the cage and rubs noses with Piglet who is the more adventurous of the two rodents. Most of the time the cat just ignores them.

What kind of pets do you keep?

We always had cats and dogs when I was growing up. Did you have pets when you were young?

DISCLAIMER: No, this isn’t turning into a cat blog. 🙂



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