Since we've become parents, my husband and I have been trying with mixed success to "tread more lightly on the Earth" as I say in my more pretentious moments. We have reduced the amount of stuff we buy, we recycle, and we reuse things as much as we can (who knew that our happy and grateful acceptance of hand-me-down toys and clothes doesn’t mark us as cheap bastards, but as an Earth-friendly family)?
But there's one area that we haven't "greened" at all – caring for the needy little four-legged beings who inhabited our life before the kids ever arrived. I guess I figured they were automatic resource sinks and didn’t think it was possible to "green your pets" (which conjures images of hair dye and really pissed-off cats, but whatever), but according to this post on Treehugger, it is!
Some things are no-brainers, or should be: spay and neuter to reduce unwanted pets, for example, clean up their poop with biodegradable bags, and keep housecats inside. Cats kill more birds than wind turbines, more than just about anything else, possibly including habitat destruction.
And according to Treehugger, it's more green and certainly more sustainable and humane to adopt a pet from a shelter than buying one at a pet store.
Others are more surprising, such as: you can compost pet waste as long as you aren't using it on anything you're going to eat. Which is maybe a little further than I want to go, but if you're willing, more power to you.
