I don't want to get a family pet due to ethics

[Markinsomerset]

Hi,

My wife really wants a pet and thinks it is very valuable for the children. However ethically I don't agree as cats are responsible for distroying lots of species. Dogs I think its very unfair for as each day I'm sure they feel like they are being abandoned each time they are left alone. Can't guarantee that the suppliers are ethical.

If everyone got rid of their pets then no one would go hungry in the world. They just seem like a selfish interest IMO.

Who is right?

It's put down before being incinerated though, yes?

Yes, Fluffycloud, sick animals are definitely euthanized before incineration.

euthanased, stupid autocorrect...

Oh good, I had disturbing visions.

well Fluffy24 obviously if it's sick with something that can be passed on, they whole herd will usually need to be put down too. Those tragic circumstances none of the meat will make it into any food chain!

So all the bits that the precious first world people won't eat, that is currently fed to our dogs should be re-distributed to the third world?!! OK time to come off the internet for me!

Agree some of the replies were mocking the OP but not all and tbh if someone makes a bald statement that if everyone in the first world got rid of their pets it would end world hunger I think a certain amount of scepticism regarding the seriousness of their post is to be expected.

I think keeping pets is selfish. Animals aren't here just to entertain and feed us. The way we selectively breed many pets is horrible. I prefer to see animals in the wild and stop destroying their habitats

I have 2 cats. They came from the RSPCA and were 8 months old when we had them. The RSPCA made sure they were spayed/castrated before we had them so they could not reproduce.

They bring a lot of happiness to us and our three children and don't cost very much to feed. We have been "presented" with the odd mouse/rat since we had them, but they are mostly very soft. They are both 100% happier with us than they were at the RSPCA confined to a small 6 x 3 foot enclosure with both an indoor and an outdoor area.

Bearing in mind that they both existed before we adopted them, are we unreasonable to have them? Or should they all be put to sleep?????

Irresponsible cat owners would not, in any way, shape or form be encouraged to neuter their cats if less people had them - neutering costs money, they would just drown the kittens instead if the RSPCA didn't take them. Is that really the right thing for the poor cat or kittens?

As long as their are animals at the RSPCA needing homes, I will give them homes, because the alternative isn't worth thinking about.

Of course keeping pets is selfish, though to reduce the relationship between humans and animals to entertainment misses the point of the companionship between the species.

Also, who eats their pets?

By the way, it's a little too late to send dogs and cats back into the wild; they are what they are due to thousands of years of being with humans. We are responsible for them.

Yeah, given the thousands of years that dogs and cats have be domesticated, most dogs and cats natural habitat is their owners living room.

Tomato keep in mind there will be lots of other things, which don't require slaughter of a whole herd, that might affect an animal so that I don't want a lump of said animal on my plate nor lying in a corner of my kitchen in the cat's dish!

I agree it's too late to send domesticated animals back to the wild. I agree with the op though that our wildlife and natural environment would be better with far fewer of them

I think the OP has been given a hard time here. A huge amount of land is required for the production food pet food globally (they don't just eat meat) which has contributed to deforestation and which could be used for human food production.

I don't personally think thats a reason not to have pets (although advocate rescue animals - I have a rescue cat) but it is a very real issue which doesn't deserve the derision and lack of thought shown by some on this thread.

If people stopped buying animals from breeders there would be far less dumped at the pet home.

No one suggested eating pets, I don't think you understand the issue.

Fluffy24 it is very unlikely that a disease will be passed on once the animal is dead. It is just that the regulations for human food are high and precautious, fact is for the pet food industry they are not, because they do not need to be. If anyone is under the impression that their animals eat food from exactly the same sources that they do, they are mistaken, they also do not have farms dedicated purely to the production of pet food!

Why is there deforestation on a global scale, to meet HUMAN demand.

Humans domesticated cats and dogs, but I think, given the nature of cats and dogs, this was hardly against their will. Just read how many strays try to worm their way into people's lives. Releasing them into the 'wild' will most likely just result in history repeating itself. Either they are eradicated as species to completely rid ourselves of pets (why would we have the right to do that?), or regulations are improved to ensure that their welfare is met. What needs to change is over indulgence in the first world, of which pets are a small part of this, not the complete problem.

The whole idea that they are linked to world hunger is why so many people have ridiculed this post. For good reason. World hunger is caused by humans, humans consume too much, humans indulge their animals true. But trying to cure world hunger by getting rid of pets, is like trying to reduce carbon emissions by scraping one car!

Whatever OP's motives he is right - having a pet has to be a choice of both/all the adults in a household. Everyone has an absolute veto.

Tomato another good reason you don't want your pets to eat dead, diseased or dying animals is that many in this category will have had drugs which are still in their system (human food chain animals all have to have had a specific withdrawal period for each different type of drug so no traces remain at slaughter). But by definition many dead animals may have recently had treatment which evidently was unsuccessful! This could be antibiotics (which isn't good given current concerns about resistance), the drugs used to put the animal down, or drugs which do an important job in the target species but might be deadly to others, there is a cattle and sheep wormer which is poisonous to dogs for example.

Sick animals, dead animals, dying animals are better off disposed of carefully.

Injured animals which are otherwise healthy may go for human/pet food chain but only if they are deemed OK to travel, a vet needs to sign off that they can travel, and they have to go to the closest abbatoir.

Fluffy, you seem to be talking only of the UK. The human pet food industry is global and different countries will have different regulations.

In all cases, I am completely that someone would suggest we feed the third world starving millions on food that would otherwise be used for dog food. I cannot believe that anyone else has not found this attitude beyond discusting. What should be shared with the third world starving millions is the higher quality food that people in the first world eat. We do not need to starve dogs in order to feed humans, because first world humans are too priviledged, greedy and ignorant.

It is that type of attitude that goes some way to explaining why there are millions starving in the first place.

Yes I am taking about the UK but we have these rules across the EU.

I know it's probably not a genuine suggestion but the idea that people should release their pets into the wild is not workable. I suppose parrots would do okay, but all the small furries and birds would be killed by predators.

Dogs and cats might enjoy it at first, but as soon as cold weather set in they'd be hanging around in our gardens, gazing through the windows with big, sad eyes begging to be taken back in doors. Indoors is their natural environment now. Just as once we lived in caves and foraged, but no one would really want to do that now.

getting cats and dogs neutered, not breeding them and not buying them from breeders is a fairly simple way of dramatically reducing their numbers within just a few years.

posted too soon.

It doesn't have t be a matter of returning all pets to the "wild" even if that was possible - its a silly notion. Simply by neutering existing pets, not breeding them and not buying animals from breeders would dramatically alter their numbers within a short space of time.

But the EU only accounts for half of the first world population. There have been many cases in the USA of pets dying of organ failure due to pet food contamination and lower standards.

In either case, sending all the meat designated for first world pet food or only sending the meat designated for EU pet food to the starving third world is still a VERY messed up thing to say.

I didn't say that we should send pet food to the third world, I was just correcting a misconception that pets are or could/should be fed dead or dying animals rather than just bits of ones which are deemed fit for human for chain.

I assumed that nobody really intended to make the third world eat the stuff we don't want, but rather when there is a finite amount of food which can be produced in the world it might seem frivolous to fed so much to pets when people are going hungry.

However this really oversimplifies the issue IMO and would require wholesale change in thinking about pets across the world, hence the OP is BU in thinking one person not having a pet makes any difference.

It also seems U to pick on pet ownership, how many of us exercise simply to enable us to eat more than we would otherwise need - you could say gym membership is unethical!

But pets can be fed on animals that are not fit for human consumption. They are scavengers and plenty of strays survive very well on dead or dying animals, that are not fit for human consumption and on things that would kill humans if they ate them.

This is worth a read www.newsagepress.com/foodpetsdiefor.html I knew I wasn't imagining it, I remember reading somewhere that diseased animals go into pet food. Perhaps not in the UK (but I wouldn't count on it, business is business). This woman did a lot of research into pet food and found a lot of ingredients that you wouldn't want your pet eating.