Outdoor Pets

I know critters love the outdoors, and I agree that they should spend lots and lots of time outside. Same with children. Being outdoors is healthy and favorable.  I love sitting in my chair, reading a book and listening to the neighborhood children play.  I despise mosquitoes and sunburns and humidity, but otherwise I have pleasant outdoor experiences.  This is because I can go inside when I am cold, tired, hungry, anemic from skeeter bites, or sweating too much for my water intake to keep up.

Animals can't come in on their own unless they have a door flap and, ya know, a home.  In Colorado, working emergency for eight years, I rarely ran into anyone who had an 'outdoor dog'.  Because those were my formative years in veterinary medicine, working for a veterinarian that held diplomates in both anesthesia and pain management and upheld the strictest standards for medicine, I thought that it was normal for those with pets to keep them indoors.  Made sense to me because Colorado can get below 0℉ every winter and up to 100℉ every summer. That's an impressive temperature fluctuation.

I was horribly naive.

Now that I am in Houston, TX, I can see that.  Easily 33% of the animals I saw at the Emergency Hospital I worked for were strictly outdoor dogs or cats.  And cats, you know, are pretty independent and persistent. If they want to be outside they will be outside. So that I could kiiiinda understand.  But not the dogs. Especially the large, thick coated, hairy dogs.  Like Huskies and Labradors.  When you have an animal and live in the hot, humid armpit of the USA, you'd think that humans would inherently know not to leave critters outside that cannot sweat.

But being in Texas also opened my eyes to how little humans in Houston care about pets as if they are family.  And how behind Houston is in regards to veterinary medicine.

I saw this outdoor cat today, lounging on a couch that was set on a curb for garbage pickup.  He was so comfortable that I had to take a photo. Today's temperature is perfect for outdoor enjoyment.  But in three months, dogs will once again die of heat stroke or dehydration.  Not to mention the toxic plants like Sago Palm and Foxglove (Digitalis). 

I just don't understand how people would have a dog just to leave it outside. How people choose not to let the dog be a part of the pack.  It baffles me to no end.