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I didn’t meet her owner in the hospital that day. [qh]
那天我没在医院见到她（橘猫草莓）的主人。[qh]
Strawberry would need to be hospitalized for at least a week after the surgery, and cat owners—who come from all over the country and even the world for kidney transplants; [qh]
“草莓”手术后至少需要住院一周，而猫咪主人——他们来自全国各地，甚至世界各地，为猫咪进行肾移植;[qh]
Schmiedt’s farthest patient traveled to Athens, Georgia, from Moscow—cannot always stay the entire time, because of work or family responsibilities. [qh]
施米特最远的患者从莫斯科出发抵达佐治亚州的雅典，出于工作或家庭责任，主人不能一直待在那里。[qh]
Strawberry’s owner had dropped her off right before the surgery and would pick her up after she recovered.[qh]
“草莓”的主人在手术前将她放下，等她康复后再来将她接走。[qh]
But also, the owner didn’t want her name in a magazine article about $15,000 kidney transplants. [qh]
但是，“草莓”的主人也不想让她的名字出现在一篇1.5万美元肾移植的杂志文章中。[qh]
(That’s the cost of the surgery at UGA; with travel and follow-up care, the total can be two or three times that amount.) [qh]
(这是佐治亚大学手术的费用; 加上旅费和后续护理费用，总价可能是这个数字的两到三倍。)[qh]
She wasn’t alone in not wanting to be named. [qh]
她不是唯一一位不愿透露姓名的人。[qh]
In the course of reporting this story, I spoke with more than a dozen owners, several of whom were wary of going public about their cat’s transplant.[qh]
在报道这个故事的过程中，我与十几位猫主人交谈过，其中有几位对公开猫移植手术持谨慎态度。[qh]
Others were happy, even eager, to share the experience, but they too sometimes told me of judgment radiating from family or acquaintances. [qh]
其他猫主人则很高兴，甚至很渴望分享这种经历，但他们有时也会告诉我来自家人或熟人的说三道四。[qh]
“I wouldn’t think of saying to somebody, ‘Wow, that’s an expensive car,’” one owner told me. [qh]
“我不会想对别人说，‘哇，这车真贵，’”一位猫主人告诉我。[qh]
“But people seem pretty free to say, ‘Wow, you spent a lot of money on a cat.’”[qh]
“但人们似乎可以自由地说，‘哇，你给一只猫花了很多钱。’”[qh]
And it is a lot of money. [qh]
这是一大笔钱。[qh]
For decades, Americans’ collective spending on veterinary care has been rising—it exceeded $34 billion in 2021—a sign of a broader shift in how we think about pets. [qh]
几十年来，美国人在兽医保健上的总支出一直在上升——2021年超过了340亿美元——这表明我们对宠物的看法发生了更广泛的转变。[qh]
Our grandparents might have found it indulgent to allow pets on the living-room couch, let alone the bed. [qh]
我们的祖父母可能会觉得让宠物呆在客厅的沙发上是一种纵容，更不用说床上了。[qh]
But as birth rates have fallen, pets have become more intimate companions. [qh]
但随着出生率的下降，宠物已成为人类更亲密的伴侣。[qh]
(In my own household, our cat Pete is really quite insistent on taking up the full third of the bed that he believes is rightfully his.)[qh]
(在我自己家，我们的猫皮特坚持要占床的三分之一，皮特认为床理所当然属于他。)[qh]
Cats and dogs now have day cares; health insurance; funerals; even trusts, should an owner die an untimely death—a proliferation of services that implies new obligations to pet ownership, turning it into something more like parenthood.[qh]
猫和狗现在有日托; 医疗保险; 葬礼; 如果宠物主人英年早逝，甚至还有信托——各种服务的激增意味着宠物主人的新责任，将其变成更像是为人父母的事情。[qh]
This is, in fact, why $15,000 for a kidney transplant provokes so much judgment, isn’t it? [qh]
事实上，这就是为什么1.5万美元的肾移植手术会引发这么多的评价，不是吗?[qh]
The unease with the money is an unease with the status of pets. [qh]
对金钱的不安是对宠物地位的不安。[qh]
Our very language is inadequate: They are not simply property, as pet owner implies, nor are they fully equivalent to children, as pet parent implies.[qh]
我们的语言匮乏: 宠物不像主人所指的那样简单地是财产，也不像宠物父母所指的那样完全等同于孩子。[qh]
They occupy a space in between. [qh]
它们居于两者之间。[qh]
What do we owe these animals in our care—these living creatures that have their own wants and wills but cannot always express them? [qh]
我们应该给予这些动物什么——这些生命有自己的愿望和意愿，但它们通常无法表达出来? [qh]
