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The Great Cat and Dog Massacre: The Real Story of World War Two’s Unknown Tragedy

We have mentioned the massacre of pets in England before on the forum. That is the only way I could have known about it.
This book is about the killing of pets at the beginning of World War 2, but it is not a description of what happened.
It more goes into what led up to it and how it was possible for people to react the way they did. It also examines what happened afterwards. Kean did some very detailed research for her book. If we are ever to understand the mass killing we need to understand what led up to it.


http://news.google.ca/news/url?sr=1&ct2=...t=2&at=dt0

It is an incident that has not been talked about much. In a few days 400,000 animals died. People rushed to kill their own pets. How has this been kept so quiet? How is it that both my parents were war veterans and were there and yet they never mentioned it once to me. My mother was involved in evacuating children early in the war. She had to have known about it. It is like everybody agreed to pretend it never happened.

I think this book is a good thing. We need to understand how people reacted the way they did. It is the best way to protect pets from ever being in danger again. I think the world would never react that way again. At least I hope not.
I am in two minds about wanting to read that book. Yet I think in a way, I would.

No-one I knew who had been through the war mentioned it to me AT ALL! Not even my mother. And she told me almost everything about what happened in the war. Those were my 'bedtime stories' when I was a child!  She pulled no punches either. My favourite book was "Britain at War"; published either during the war or just after. My favourite picture was bombs being transported into a rocky looking shelter! I was about six years old.
And no one mentioned the mass killing of cats and dogs.
However I do know that my mother's family, who had cats, kept them. (Although there was no mention of being expected to put them to sleep.)
Her Aunt also had a dog, because she would tell me that when the V1s came over, her Aunt would get the dog and her child under the table and then lie on top of them. So there must have been some choice in the matter....

However it does go to show that masses of people are willing to do what "authority" and "peer pressure" tells them to do. That is a chilling fact, and still relevant today. That is the cause of so many German people willingly and cheerfuly doing what Hitler and his henchmen told them to do.
Rebels are few and far between.
We are almost the same age and both of our parents were there(my father probably did arrive after because he came from Canada). My parents told me many things about the war.  Your parents told you many things about the war.
No one in either of our families told us anything about this. I find that disturbing and I am glad there is a book. The animals who were killed should not be forgotten.

I think it was a voluntary killing of pets. The idea to do it spread and almost everyone joined in. You are right that it is scary that people acted without thinking because someone said they should.

They were the same about evacuating their children. They let total strangers take their children away and it was not even sure where the children were going. They were placed with strangers who didn't always want them.

It was like a mass hysteria that caused people to act irrationally. I don't think people would act that way now. I hope we never find out.

Not all families killed their pets. Families like yours didn't join in. There were still some people who were thinking for themselves.

It is odd that no one mentioned what happened. It would be interesting to read the book. Have they kept this quiet because they were ashamed?
My husband was evacuated from London at age 4. It had an awful effect on him. And it drove his mother to a complete mental beakdown from which she never recovered. She was hospitalised for the rest of her life. When my husband eventually got to see her it was years later and she did not recognise him and told him to go away.

But it is strange that no-one mentioned the animals. And I have known a lot of people who lived during the war. So that is downright weird.

Dogs probably had it worse than cats. A cat could be kept 'because it controlled vermin' so that would be a good excuse to keep a cat. But apart from essential working dogs (guard dogs, sheep dogs etc) many dogs must have been killed.

I think the problem was seen as the idea that non-essential animals would eat up food which was rationed or in short supply. What a dog could eat in a day could have fed a child, for instance....
But I am sure the book explains it more in-depth.

I know one thing for sure. If Misty and I ever had to time-travel back to the war we would share rations!
They killed the animals before there was any need to ration anything. They did not know the rationing would be so severe. They did not know the war would last so long. It was a completely irrational response.

The evacuees did not have an easy time of it and their parents didn't do well either. Your husband's experience was extreme, but not uncommon. Some children had a worse time. The idea might have seemed good, but they totally disrupted lives and many people never recovered. As a soldier my mother lined up those children and marched them away from their parents. She didn't care about them or feel sad that they were being taken from their parents. She just did her job. She never once sad to me she was sorry she had done it.

You and Misty and I would have found a way to share rations and make do with what we had.

I am surprised that they did not have some major disease outbreaks after they killed all those cats.
I always thought that if I had been in the war I would have done anything to help. The 'good' side of me would have liked to have been a Land Girl. The 'bad' side of me would have liked to have been on anti-aircraft duties.

But since I knew Misty what I would do if ever we had the misfortune to be time-travelled back to the war, would be to grab a camouflage tent and head for the mountains or the deep woods, or even build our own shelter. And there we would share our food. I think I could live like that with my girl from 1939-1945.
Put her to sleep because there was a war on? No way.
I don't know what I would have done, but I know I wouldn't have turned my back on my animals.
I think heading for the hills and living off the land would have been a wise response. It was a not a nice time for anyone. There were six years of war, but it took much longer than six years to rebuild. Some things that were lost were never replaced. I am amazed that the dogs still trusted people after what was done to most of them.

I think we should refuse to have wars from now on. It sounds a little naïve, but we all make choices and countries make choices that lead up to wars. Refuse to make those choices ever again.