Ok, now this topic has been touched on quite a few times, but it has been something I have been thinking about lately. Certain well-known people in the AR business seem to want to get rid of "pets".


.....as the surplus of cats and dogs (artificially engineered by centuries of forced breeding) declined, eventually companion animals would be phased out, and we would return to a more symbiotic relationship – enjoyment at a distance."
-Ingrid Newkirk, PETA vice-president, quoted in The Harper's Forum Book, Jack Hitt, ed., 1989, p.223.


"Liberating our language by eliminating the word 'pet' is the first step ... In an ideal society where all exploitation and oppression has been eliminated, it will be NJARA's policy to oppose the keeping of animals as 'pets.'"
-New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance, "Should Dogs Be Kept As Pets? NO!" Good Dog! February 1991, p.20


"The cat, like the dog, must disappear..... We should cut the domestic cat free from our dominance by neutering, neutering, and more neutering, until our pathetic version of the cat ceases to exist."
-John Bryant, Fettered Kingdoms: An Examination of a Changing Ethic, PETA 1982, p.15.

Do you get the impression these people grew up deprived of the love of a dog or a cat? Are people like Newkirk and Bryant incapable of affection or are they merely misguided? What a cold, sad world these people would like to perpetuate.

Notice it's mostly PeTA. I'm not sure yet how much of that makes sense, but it's not like I will live to see it happen, so it's not high on my list of thoughts.

I noticed these are really old quotes, I wonder if their stance on the issue has changed at all?

Yes, they are old quote, but some people still think this way. I doubt it will happen in my lifetime, but would you want it to happen?

I understand why people would argue against it, but I hate living without pets and would be very very unhappy if I had to do so. I would like there to be some system where companion animals could be sure to have truly good homes....

I'm not sure. It is a basic requirement of AR, it seems. All based on a technicality though really.

I disagree that it is a basic requiremtn of AR. It's a basic requirement of a certain strain of AR, definately, but one can still be an AR person and still live with non-human animals, surely?

The second quotation was a bit ambiguous. Did they really want to eliminate pets? Or did they mainly want to eliminate the word "pet" and substitute a different word or expression, like "companion animal"?

Some people seem to see the keeping of animals as pets as being akin to slavery.

I don't think Ingrid Newark hates cats and dogs, I think she doesn't want them to suffer anymore. There are many, many, people who love their animal companions dearly (I am one of them) , but there are even more who mistreat them, discard then, and just view them as having less value than humans.

I adore cats and dogs. I grew up with a doberman pinscher named Honey who was my greatest friend and companion throughout my childhood. When she died, I felt the loss just as deeply as when my own brother passed. I also have two cats who I have raised since the age of two weeks. I love them, keep them safe, they are my family. So I do know what it is to love an animal, to communicate without words, to look in my dog's eyes and truly hear her. But I leave the safe haven of my home and all I see are discarded cats in tremendous numbers living in allies, in parking garages. I see them starving and thin, without food or proper shelter. I see dogs living out their lives as guard dogs in filthy lots. I see them outside in the freezing cold, in the rain, in the blistering summer heat. Here in Brooklyn, NY stray cats and dogs are everywhere. And for them life is certainly short and bleak. The SPCA and other organizations are out there everyday trying to alleviate the problem, but it seems the problem is only getting worse. I would love it if all cats and dogs were taken care of, but frankly I don't see it ever happening. So, as much as I love them, I have to support the idea that they need to be phased out. At this time, I see it as the only humane option.*sigh*

P.S. I think it's perfectly in line with AR philosophy to do rescue work, and open up your home to abandoned animals, but breeding "pets" is a no no (according to AR). JMO.

I do not believe that humans should breed domesticate animals to provide companionship (or for any other reason).

Do you get the impression these people grew up deprived of the love of a dog or a cat? Are people like Newkirk and Bryant incapable of affection or are they merely misguided? What a cold, sad world these people would like to perpetuate.
I grew up with both cats and dogs, and all sorts of other things, and I agree with them. ...and should I add that I don't think that I'm cold and sad? I like vegetarian grazing farm animals quite a bit. Dogs and cats -- not so much.

I don't consider myself anti-pet. I'm pro-rescuing, pro-adopting, pro-spatering, pro-neutering, anti-breeding, anti-petstore. I wouldn't mind seeing domesticated animals of a carnivorous type going extinct at around the same time that factory farms and animal biproducts also go extinct and there is no longer a food source readily available for them.

If you think that humans should "phase out" companion animals, and cease to live with them, then yes, I do.

Here is an interesting excercise. Argue that humans should breed domestic animals for companionship without using variations of exactly the same arguments that are used to justify breeding domestic animals for food.

Domestic animals have become a species of it's own so to speak though... if humans were to neuter all of them it would in a way cause their extinction... which seems a bit much in a way... cause extinction to protect the animals.

Given that some towns (mine to an extent) has a new policy of "all animals must be registered", any non-registered (tagged) animals are allowed to be caught and put to sleep. This could lead to the extinction of any non-domestic cats & dogs (or at least drastically cut down the population in many areas), so if all domestic cats and dogs never had puppies/kittens, we'd be practically causing the extinction of a few hundred species of animals -- in the name of saving the same animals.

At the same time... there's also a related point of, where would the animals go? It's not like there's that much land that animals can roam free without being killed for fun, profit, or accident by humans.

"Do you get the impression these people grew up deprived of the love of a dog or a cat? Are people like Newkirk and Bryant incapable of affection or are they merely misguided? What a cold, sad world these people would like to perpetuate."

I am generally against animal husbandry and keeping of "companion animals" or "pets" or whatever. The fact that I grew up with a lovable family dog is exactly why I feel this way. While that animal gave me fun and good times, at ages 8 to 12 -- I then began losing interest, as I developed other interests. So after then, I gave little back to the dog. I could see that the dog was sad and depressed, and furthermore, since it was bred and trained to be a domestic animal, it was entirely dependent on humans for its care, for its ability to survive, and was not able to do anything to set itself free and improve its life. Everything about its life was up to humans, it essentially had no ability to self-direct its own life. It led a sad, sad life.

Wow, I'm not peta affiliated at all, and I'm not particularly a animal rights activist, and I had several pets growing up...and thus was never deprived of the love of a cat or a dog.

But even though I know it's not going to happen, I think it would be a better world if we stopped raising animals for human consumption and allowed animals to live as animals. Many people don't care for their pets, and they end up ferril, or being put to sleep in the dog-pound. I'm raising a rabbit right now (that someone bought and didn't care for) that was bread specifically to have LONG hair. Thus this rabbit cannot really care for itself. If left to himself he becomes a big mass of mats. He has to be brushed/combed and cut which is traumatizing for a rabbit (or this one anyway)...and it bothers me that they bread this kind of rabbit for human consumption, but didn't stop to consider that rabbits don't in general need to have really really long hair.

Someone asked who should train an animal if a human isn't going to do it (this is in another thread) and my feeling is that just as my Mom trained me to be human, a dogs mom should get to train a dog to be a dog. I can't train a dog to be a dog, since I'm not one. What I can do is train a dog to be like a human....or to do things for my convenience...which just to me, doesn't seem natural...or even right.

Now, I know people love their pets. In fact, I really care for the bunny I keep. But I also recognize that bunnies generally would probably enjoy living outside, eating a natural diet of various vegetation rather than bagged food...and sleeping in a rabbit nest rather than a cage. (my rabbit roams the house during the day) I also understand that you can't really release a domesticated animal into the wild.

Now again, I know that phasing out domesticated animals isn't likely to happen...because we love 'our' domesticated animals don't we? And we in general look out for our own best interests. Meanwhile...ferril cats are a real problem, and yet, people continue to breed cats....Dogs have to be put to sleep...and people continue to breed dogs.

These are animals bred for human use....I just have trouble with that. I know everyone else doesn't...and I haven't been deprived. :) It just occured to me somewhere along the way (probably on my grandmother's farm--horses, cows, chickens, geese, goats and rabbits--born and dead for humans...or when we had to move when I was little and gave up one of our pets, which was no longer convenient for my parents to own), that this may not be a 'natural' way for an animal to live.

But again....I'm weird. :)

B

But I also recognize that bunnies generally would probably enjoy living outside, eating a natural diet of various vegetation rather than bagged food...and sleeping in a rabbit nest rather than a cage. (my rabbit roams the house during the day) I also understand that you can't really release a domesticated animal into the wild.
i think that well-cared-for house rabbits are much better off than wild rabbits are. wild rabbits live short, very high stress lives.

But their lives are their own...not mine.

B

"i think that well-cared-for house rabbits are much better off than wild rabbits are. wild rabbits live short, very high stress lives."

Really? Then maybe we should trap all the rabbits -- make it illegal for them to live by themselves without human supervision -- and set up a government rabbit-welfare system that guarantees a happy healthy dometic existence for every rabbit, and hires civil service employees to see to it that they get it.

It is illegal for rabbits to "live by themselves without human supervision" as you put it, in this country at least. They are deemed feral and put to death. There are government departments whose duty it is to see that all rabbits in this country are domestic pets, or rabbits raised for food.

Really? Then maybe we should trap all the rabbits -- make it illegal for them to live by themselves without human supervision -- and set up a government rabbit-welfare system that guarantees a happy healthy dometic existence for every rabbit, and hires civil service employees to see to it that they get it.
it's not our responsibility or place to impose "improvements" on wild rabbits to make their lives better (and i'm sure that would screw up ecosystems, and wild rabbits also probably would not live as well in homes as domesticated ones). but i certainly don't feel sorry that my adopted rabbits didn't get to live and die as wild rabbits. my reaction to bethanie's last post was actually that my life wasn't my own because of government. i may not be happy with a lot of what comes with it, and i also don't have some of the freedoms of a wild rabbit, but things are probably better for me than they would be without government, too.

Hmm.. that's a good point. Why can't I do what ever I want? Isn't my government imposing unnatural restraints on my life?

LOL...really? IS that a good point?

B

Sure is! I've always wanted to live an anarchistic lifestyle, but I'm too lazy to overthrow the government. I'd rather play computer games.

Seriously though, other humans impose on me more than I impose my will on my cats. I dictate what they eat, yep, that's a big one. They have to poo in the litter box. They have a dusk till dawn curfew. That's a whole lot less rules than my flatmates used to have. Apart from that they are free to mostly what they will. And if you're wondering about things like scratching the furniture and destroying stuff, they don't, as I supply them with sufficient entertainment. No one's making them live with me, they were both street cats before I got them.

Hannah, my latest, was feral. I will let her out when she asks to go out. I have had her four months or so now, and she still has not wanted to go outside. I get the impression she genuinely prefers the soft indoor life to starving outdoors. I know that she would have only had a few more years in the wild, at the most. And most of those years would have been spent either pregnant or suckling babies. Yet the act of me keeping a pet is a bad thing?