General Discussion

One of my roommates in college had a cat who was having babies. I asked if she was going to take it to the vet and she said "no, cats can give birth on their own." "What if something bad happens?" "Then it happens."

She explained she grew up on a farm and they always had a rotating crew of 6-12 "barn cats" and several dogs at any given moment that grew up on the property and were friendly and they fed them because they kept rats and other critters away, but they stayed in the barn and had free run of the land. If there were too many at any given time they would have the farm vet spay and neuter as many as they could find during a routine visit. She explained that of course the kids liked them and they all had names but invariably at some point one would go missing with no explanation, or it'd get too close to the woods and get taken by a coyote, or a hawk would grab a kitten. They might get stomped by a cow or kicked by a horse, and of course it was sad, but they weren't inclined to drop everything and pay thousands for emergency surgery to rescue it because there were always more cats as part of the farm ecosystem. Tragic, but "stuff happens,' it's the circle of life...

She also said if one of the animals got dangerous - if a cat or dog couldn't live peaceably in the environment - if one managed to destroy a chicken coop and kill chickens or was repeatedly hurting or biting the children, or spooking horses making them jump fences and risk breaking legs, they would eventually decide to put it down because they needed those chickens and horses, and once an animal decides it's okay to hunt in its own home, it's no good to keep them around. They always hated doing so, but it was necessary as a way of life.

This is way different than shooting a dog because you're "frustrated" with it or think it can't be trained. Even if KN was cool with this and that was her way, WHAT MADE HER THINK this would somehow be good optics when MOST people have never experienced animal "farm rules" and only think of animals as pets? If this is the club that destroys her career she deserves it. We don't need a politician who in any way thinks talking about dragging a dog to a quarry and shooting it in the head and being somehow gleeful about it is a good print story to put out there.