Anyone else find equating pets and animals with humans to be rather strange?

[hfojvt]

74. you do know that is what we all do?

All pet owners.

I have three dogs. Thus, I spend about $400 a year to feed them, another $100 a year for vet bills and another $50 a year to register them with the city, and even more if they get sick.

In theory, I could donate that money to the Eliminate project, with $1.80 that project will provide three shots to save a life from neo-natal tetanus. Instead of saving those 250 lives, I feed and care for my dogs. Some 2.6 million children die of hunger each year. I could be donating that $450 to help save some of those lives.

Although I might cynically note that the CEO of "Feeding America" (for example) makes some $524,000 a year. So my $550 would barely pay for two hours of her salary. Supposedly less than 3% of their money goes to administration and promotion, but it still seems to me that the CEO could feed a lot of hungry people by taking a $200,000 pay cut.

Maybe she feels like she already has, and that she SHOULD be making $700,000 a year. But heck, I would consider $300,000 to STILL be too much money.

Anyway, feeding my dogs versus feeding starving children is the natural course of pet ownership. Does that make pet owners awful people? Worse than people who take vacations or buy video games instead of donating that money to feed starving humans?