A woman with a Samoyed was walking in the opposite direction. When the Sammy came within range, I started petting her. The woman told me I must be a good person because her dog was usually wary of strangers. She had been intentionally set on fire as a puppy! Can you imagine the kind of sick bastards who would set a puppy on fire?! But she came up to me to get pets.

Hitler's dog - always happy to spend some time with Hitler.

of the cyanide he had available for suicide, and to keep her from being captured by Russians.

Some animal lover. Love is abstract for some people.

Considering that the plan was for him also to take the cyanide, which he did, then that wasn't out of any sort of dislike of his dog. You think the Russians would have taken kindly to Hitler's dog?

The unilateral decision to kill a dog because one is planning suicide is egomaniacal and, I think, doesn't reflect any true concern for the animal. Euthanasia prevents pain and suffering. Snuffing out a healthy young dog out of vanity is murder to me. I understand that Hitler was deeply saddened at her death, but he directed it.

I have no idea how conquering Russians would have acted towards Blondi.

Take, say, General Patton's dog "Willie", named after William the Conqueror:



Now, Willie did indeed outlive Patton, and experienced the trauma of a dog who has lost its owner.

But, countless animals were slaughtered to feed General Patton, since, unlike Hitler, he was not a vegetarian:



All I'm saying is that while someone who is mean to animals is certainly a person to avoid, the mere fact that someone is kind to animals - and not eating them certainly must qualify - does not mean they are a generally decent person. In other words kindness to animals is most significant as a personality indicator in the lack thereof.

That's common. I agree wholeheartedly, and didn't intend to argue with your post.

I've been a vegan for nearly forty years. I have also paid a veterinarian to poison a suffering, dying cat to death.

Absolutes are hard to come by.

Neither Hitler nor Patton would be invited to my historical figure dinner party.

I understand she was rather fond of horses.

the second part isn't really a good gauge.

Years ago I went to a zoo with my son and his wife when visiting them in Alabama. My daughter-in-law didn't want to walk anywhere near the monkey cage because she said one of the baboons didn't like her for some unknown reason and had tantrums whenever he caught sight of her and acted as if he wanted to attack her.

I thought she was imagining it, so I'm ashamed to say I talked her into walking toward the cage with me. Reluctantly, she did, but kind of hiding behind me.

We were a good 20 feet from the cage, and a baboon caught sight of us and glared in our direction, then leaned sideways as if trying to see my d-i-l who now was semi-crouched behind me. When she poked her head out, he began screaming and jumping all over the cage and then glared at her and shook the bars of the cage and as if trying to get at her. When she walked from behind me and turned to leave, the baboon turned his back to us, bent over, and flipped her the bird from between his legs.

A zoo attendant told us that my d-i-l resembled a former zoo employee who'd been fired for always teasing the monkeys.

My cat is not a congenial pet when it comes to other people, in fact she barely tolerates me, and that's because I feed her tuna every couple of weeks. So I can't agree with the added comment in the post.

If my dog don't like you, I'm keeping my distance.
If I listed to my pets back in the day, I could have saved myself a lot of trouble.