特别广播英语第 186 课：Let's Stop Keeping Pets 让我们停止养宠物-2

So there's plenty to be said in favor of keeping pets. But with all that in mind, I still say let's stop keeping pets. 于是人们便有许多理由赞成养宠物。但尽管心里明白所有这些理由，我依然要说让我们停止养宠物吧。

Not that a family should kill its pets. Very few could bring themselves to do that. 并不是说一个家庭应该杀死他们的宠物，很少有人能使自己做这样的事。

To be practical, I am suggesting that if we do not now have a pet we should not acquire one; second, that if we now have a pet, we let it be our last one. 实际上，我是在建议如果我们现在没有养宠物，我们就不要弄一个；第二，如果我们现在有一只宠物，就让它成为我们的最后一只吧。

I could never say that pets are bad. I am saying, let's give up this good thing - the ownership of a pet - in favor of a more imperative good. 我怎么也不会说宠物很坏；我是说，让我们放弃这个好东西，去支持一个更紧迫的有益的事业吧。

The purchase, the health care, the feeding and housing and training of a pet - and I chiefly mean the larger, longer-lived pets - cost time and money. 购买一只宠物，照顾它的健康、喂养它、给它提供住处、训练它――我主要指的是较大的、较长寿的宠物――花费时间和钱财。

Depending on the animal's size and activity, it's special tastes and needs, and the standard of living we establish for it, the care of a pet can cost form a dollar a week to a dollar or more a day. 根据动物的体形大小、活动，其特殊口味和需要，我们为之建立起生活标准，照顾一只宠物的花费可能从一周一美元到一天一美元或更多。

I would not for a moment deny it is worth that. 我从不否认喂养它的价值。

But facts outside the walls of our home keep breaking in on our awareness. 但是我们房子外的事实却不断闯入我们的意识。

Though we do not see the poverty-stricken people of India and Africa and South America, we can never quite forget that they are there. 虽然我们没有看到印度、非洲和南美洲穷困潦倒的人们，我们决不能完全忘记他们的存在。

Now and then their faces are shown in the news, or is the begging ads of relief organizations. Probably we send a donation whenever we can. 他们的面容不时出现在新闻里或救济组织的求援广告里。也许我们有能力时也送去了一份捐助。

But we do not, as a rule, feel a heavy personal responsibility for the afflicted and deprived for we are pretty thoroughly formed by the individualistic, competitive society we live in. 但我们通常并不感到对贫穷的人们负有重大的个人责任，因为我们几乎完全是由我们生活于其中的这个个人主义的、竞争的社会所塑造成的。