The Forgotten Ones

How Pets Suffer When Society Fails

When institutions fail to maintain stable economies, it’s not just humans who suffer. If pets are the canary in the coal mine, their suffering goes unseen.

Some people would be homeless before they gave up a family pet. Many of those folks would be homeless with a pet. There are some places where vets will treat the pets of homeless people, knowing these animals likely are the only emotional support their humans will see. As prices go up, and life becomes more unmanageable, people make tougher and tougher decisions. In a world where the old rules, like women and children first, no longer exist because more homes are just the women and children and their pets, everyone goes down with the ship. Pets first?

For many people, animals have become emotional support animals. Perhaps that, too, is a social indicator of societal institutions failing the humans they’re designed to serve. There are lots of indicators to be had that the US is failing. Increase in demand at homeless shelters and community mental health centers. Elderly losing their homes, even the homes they had the good sense to pay off, but didn’t foresee taxes making home ownership impossible.