The Last Meow

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The last meow thought I would never get over it when our dog Hollie died. My brother Dan and I both cried as Dad buried her under the avocado tree in our backyard, knowing that Hollie was gone from our lives forever. We made Dad bury her very deep so no other animals could come and dig her up. Dad said that Hollie was old (we knew that) and had been sick a long time (we knew that too) and had lived a good life (we knew that too) but my heart was broken anyway. My family also had a few pets before Hollie. For instance, we had Mousikins, who froze to death in the garage, and Swimmy, who went belly-up one night and got flushed down the toilet the next day. Whenever a pet dies, it is a sad thing but we did get over it. However, according to Burkhard Bilger in his essay “The Last Meow” from The New Yorker, Americans may be going too far to help their pets live a long time. Bilger says that “our love affair with our pets has gotten out-of-control,” and I for one agree. We Americans must develop a more reasonable perspective about the role of pets in our lives. According to Bilger, Americans are spending up to “47 billion, nearly three times as much as the federal government spends on welfare grants.” Citizens who have been laid off of work or need food stamps must be discouraged by a figure like this. In fact, I have to ask myself what a homeless person thinks when Paris Hilton’s dog walks by (or is carried by Paris) in a “$200 cashmere sweater.” With so many urgent needs in the world, here in California, there in New York, and around the world, maybe we should check our priorities when it comes to providing dentistry and psychotherapy for dogs. My cousin has three little Yorkies, for example, and those dogs get better dental care than anyone in my family does! Bilger’s essay, I think, might be similar to something

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