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?

Tomato would you be happy opening a tin of dog food and feeding it to your dog if it contained meat from an animal which was given an overdose of barbiturates to kill it? Would you be happy giving a much loved pet a tin of tripe (the stomach) which came from an animal that hours before death had been given an oral drug that is toxic to dogs and cats? Would you be happy to have a bowl of meat sitting on your kitchen floor from an animal which died of an unknown disease which may or may not be transmissible to humans?

And if you were a reputable pet food manufacturer would you be happy to base your business on this? Do you think your insurance company would be willing to insure you?

Fluffy24 I don't feed my animals on processed meats, no one eats them in our home.

Food manufacturers have been exposed using horsemeat! That wasn't particulary good for business either, but it happened. If messes like that happen in the human food chain, it is not beyond the realms of possibility to assume its worse in the pet food industry, where they can make a profit and not even running the risk of harming humans. There is a lot of corruption, a lot of greed and a lot of links in the chain of the food industry.

Depressing rant alert!

This thread feeds my sense of doom. There are too many people now! Of course it would be lovely to have a pet to love and care for. I'm sure OP's children would benefit. (although it strikes me as sad/odd that families are now spread out and time-poor, with the result that pets are 'used' to provide a lesson for caring for living beings, stress-relief or companionship (in the instance of lonely elderly people who would previously have shared a home with family members) instead of looking after other humans who need looking after). IMO now that world resources appear to be overstretched and threatened by climate change and pollution it does seem irresponsible to use them on a pet instead of on poverty-stricken people. Which is a shame obviously as there's no doubt that a happy pet can be a huge source of happiness for its owners.

I hardly ever used to extend my thinking about what constituted an ethical life to how my lifestyle affected the planet or (I'm ashamed to say) people in third world countries. Out of sight out of mind perhaps. DH claims that individual efforts have no effect anyway - better to make large-scale structural changes in his opinion. It's uncomfortable now to realise that my lifestyle isn't as ethical as I thought it was. I suspect it's the same for a lot of other mn-etters who enjoy a lifestyle that has previously been sustainable. Ignorance is bliss, as they say. Nobody likes having their lifestyle challenged as unethical. But OP was asking about having a new pet, not specifically attacking existing pet-owners - though I admit it was implied.