The question of whether we are pet owners or pet parents is up for debate. Some people feel very strongly that they own their pets. Others see them as their children. I don't know if that effects how they feel about the pets, but it does reflect an attitude of the part of the human involved. Increasingly people are seeing pets as the children in their lives. Some pets are like children.
http://news.google.ca/news/url?sr=1&ct2=...t=2&at=dt0
Thinking over my relationship to my pets, I don't like the term owner. I am more of a guardian. I don't think of them as children, except for babies I am raising. Most of my pets don't see themselves as "children" either. They have a sense of being adults.
Maybe I feel a bit like a mother to Barrie, but a 3 ft lizard is a special case.
Before I lived where I live now I used to consider myself a friend to my pets and not an "owner." After I moved here the manager kept calling me Suzy's mommy and I sometimes feel like a mother to her, caring for her and everything. I see the 2 birds as my babies right now because they both are baby birds. I see us as a family together whatever we are.
We do form family units with our pets so they are more our babies. Sometimes they are our friends. I can see how the birds are your babies and definitely you are Suzy's mommy.
It varies with my pets. Some of them are my babies. Some are more friends. I have never been comfortable with the idea of saying I own them.
I have never been comfortable with saying I'm the owner either. That would make them property or a thing and they are beings with life in them and not property.
I know, Ruth (and Catherine) that's how I feel; never called myself an 'owner'.
I never felt as if I owned Misty, like I own a car, or a pair of boots.
It didn't feel like I was a 'mother' to her either, although sometimes I got vague feelings that she was a kind of mother to me!
But that might just be my weird psychology at work! lol
It felt more as if she was my sister. In some ways (me being weird again) she felt like an elder sister.
But she was a wonderful Soul Companion.
Sally-Cat feels like a friend whom I am helping out.
I understand about Misty being like an older sister. I have had cats that were like older brothers. I have had cats that were friends and I have had cats that were my babies.
I think Jake Krinkle Snake is more of a baby. He depends on me for so much. Having said that I think I need to go get him and let him snuggle while I am typing.
Yes we have different relationships with each one of our animal friends. Maybe Koori Crow thinks I am a kind of adopted parent! Toby dog was like my little brother. Once when I saved a tiny baby mouse (from a Mouse-nest-massacre by Toby!) that felt like a baby. I had to wake up every 2 hours in the night to feed it, and carried it in a little pouch filled with dried grass next to my chest all day long, to keep it warm. It got old enough to open its eyes. Then sadly a couple of days later it passed away. I cried hard at its passing.
When you try to rescue something like a baby mouse it really hits hard when they don't make it. We put so much ourselves into a baby like that.
I find it is still a loss no matter what my connection was to my pet. I don't think I felt the loss less because the pet was a friend rather than a baby. My sense of loss is connected to what I have lost with that particular pet. I think each relationship is unique and can have bits of friend and child and ever older sibling. What I never have is a sense of ownership.
And yes I gave Jake a good snuggle. He just wanted to sit with me quietly.