Many of Jesus' parables are disturbing and can cause us loss of sleep. One prominant among them is the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus. Jesus certainly was successful in making his listeners feel the extreme disparity between them. The rich man always wears the most expensive clothes and feasts lavishly. The poor man named Lazarus, who was lying at his door, had sores all over his body. He would have been grateful if he had even received the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table. "Even 'the' dogs would come and lick his wounds" is how the English Bible puts the next line. That means, the dogs in reference here were the rich man's yard dogs. It was they who had the right over the leftovers from the rich man's table. (It was not common for the Jews to keep dogs, which were considered unclean animals). In Jesus' conversation with the Canaanite woman, she says, "Even the dogs live on the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." In those days, dogs were kept by the rich. In short, Jesus’ parable suggests that the rich man didn't have as much compassion as his dogs showed towards the poor Lazarus.

I'm afraid that what I am about to say will make me very unpopular with many people. But I am saying it anyway. The cumulative wealth that the rich countries of the world spend on their pets runs into hundreds of billions. Specialty hospitals, spas, birthday gifts, Christmas gifts, doodle clothes, vaccinations, training, grooming, toys, pedigree food all these make up to a huge industry. In the year 2024, $150 billion was spent on pets in the United States alone! The total amount needed to eradicate extreme poverty in the world is only $300 billion. That is, if the amount spent in this area in the United States alone for two years would be enough to eradicate extreme poverty in the whole world. If we add up the money spent in this sector by other High Income Countries (HICs), the story becomes even more alarming!