To think that people who don’t like pets shouldn’t be judged as “cold”?

[ByMellowScroller]

Not everyone loves animals, yet people think it’s a red flag. AIBU to think it’s just personal preference and nothing more?

This is batshit. As stated upthread - fucking Hitler had pets! It tells you absolutely fuck all about how kind/loving/tolerant someone is.

If someone doesn't like animals/pets, then I'm never going to be friends with them anyway so they can be as "cold" as they like.

Depends what you mean.

Not liking pets, as in choosing not to have them, because they don't fit your lifestyle? No, not a red flag.

Being unpleasant to other people's pets? Yes massive red flag.

@DaylightTreachery
"It’s not the same as ‘no feeling for other living beings,’ though. I’m a vegetarian who donates to and volunteers with animal habitat conservation groups. I just don’t like the idea of pet animals, have never had any in adulthood, and the way people anthropomorphise their ‘furbsbies’ drives me nuts.
But I’d estimate I do more good for animals in general than a meagre eater who’s fine with battery eggs and cheap chicken, but has an overweight Pekingese they spoil."

Agree with all of this. I don't like the idea of pets either. I actually think it can be quite cruel (why keep a fish in a tiny tank? Why keep a parrot in a cage? Why take puppies and kittens away from their mums when they are only a matter of weeks old?)

Lots of pet owners have double standards about animals. People are quite happy to put human emotions on animals when it suits them and ignore them the next minute "Oh my puppy loves me, he's my baby" etc. but ignore that farm animals have feelings too.

Pigs sing lullabies to their babies, cows have been known to search for missing calves for months. I dont want a dog in the house but equally I don't want a pig on my dinner plate. Am I colder than a meat-eater who has a pet dog?

Why is it OK to kill and eat some animals but you are "cold" if you don't want a pet?!

Totally agree.

One can be a caring human being without owning a pet! Seriously 🙄

Who says people who don't like pets don't like animals ?

“”I have to admit nowadays when my kids start dating new girlfriends/boyfriends I will always ask if they have pets.”

Well I’m sure as Eva told her mum, Frau Braun no need to worry about her new bf, Adolf- he had a couple of pet dogs… 😬🙄

It's not cruel to keep dogs (taking your puppies example). For a start, dogs don't form bio-family attachments the way humans do - that's you anthropomorphising them.

On top of that, dogs are not wild animals - the vast majority of them cannot survive in the wild, and even if they manage it they'll have pretty miserable lives. For good or for ill, they're reliant on humans. Given that the human race did that to them, I'd say we have a collective responsibility to give them comfortable lives.

Can't say the same for cats, though. Pint-sized psychopathic murder machines ;)

Dogs wouldn't exist in anything like the numbers they do if it weren't for humans actively breeding them though. Actively creating new dogs, and then saying, "Well now the only option is to keep them comfy as pets" makes no sense. It's not mandatory to create the dogs to start with?

It's like justifying buying from a puppy farm on the basis that the puppies have been born now.

And similar to people who ask what we'd do with all the cows/sheep/pigs if everyone stopped eating meat. The only reason there are so many of these animals is because of human choices.

You sound lovely, kind and tolerant. Guess you’re a pet owner yes?!! 🤨

Is Hitler the only example posters have of pet owning psychopaths? 😆

Yes I’m interested to know if my DSs/DD’s potential life partners like cats/dogs, it’s a very simple gauge I use 🤷‍♀️

Mussolini, Putin, Ceausescu...how many do you want?

Point being, owning a pet is not a reliable indicator that someone is a good egg. It doesn't make someone a bad person either, but all the posters going on about how they just know that pet owners are nicer, kinder, better people are talking out of their arse.

In answer to your question, I have been a pet owner in the past. Didn't make me any better than I am now I'm not a pet owner. In fact, I ate meat back then and don't anymore.

Whether or not someone is kind, or genuinely cares for animals, is utterly unrelated to whether they own pets or not. I stand by that.

There's plenty more where that came from! Henry VIII, Dennis Nilsen, Putin, Robespierre, Rose West, Emperor Nero... so I agree, we should mix it up a bit and have some variety.

I'm allergic to animal hair and dander, so we won't be having any pets. Good to know that marks me out as an awful person, according to some on here 😂 I judge people who breed dogs and keep animals inside so they never see the light of day. We're all human so we judge people who do things differently to ourselves, it's all normal!

Yes. I think pet ownership is cruel so don’t do it.
Is that a red flag?!

The phrase ‘red flag’ is so overused that it’s become meaningless.

And of course the premise in the OP is silly. On an average day you might meet all sorts of strangers; the bus driver, your dry cleaner, your dentist, somebody in the queue at the supermarket, your child’s school teacher etc. Some will be nice and someone won’t. There is no way you can know who has a cat, or divide them into who are pet owners and who aren’t.

Even Blofeld has a cat. 😂

I prefer to judge people on their actions and character. Whether they actually care about animals matters more to me than whether they have a pet rabbit.

And I don't assume that pet owners genuinely care about animals for the reasons I gave upthread - lots of them don't.

It's not a red flag to not want pets because you dislike owning them, nor does it mean you have 'no feeling' for them.

I had a lot of pets growing up and loved them all dearly. Now I am in my 30s, have two little kids and work full time I do not have the brain capacity to take on any more living things and my ability to care for them properly is severely limited. I would now class myself as disliking pets. And I'm definitely not a red flag.

Animal lovers generally have more tolerance to others.

No. there are constant threads with posters saying they prefer dogs to humans, hate kids but prefer pets etc. Far from tolerant.

If I was looking to date again, I wouldn’t choose someone who said they didn’t like, or were indifferent towards animals.

We simply wouldn’t be compatible.

I do often prefer the company of animals, and I don’t see anything wrong with that; I’m just not particularly extroverted.

Not all dogs have the instinct to chase or kill. I've had dogs for nearly 50 years, none of them has ever killed anything. I know some dogs do, I'm not denying that it happens but mine do not. Not all cats kill birds. None of mine ever have.

But I know, I'm probably still like Hitler, Mussolini, Putin...🙄

But nobody said that you were like Hitler etc.? Literally not a single person has said, "All pet owners are psychopathic". (Posters have said that not wanting a pet is sociopathic though, and apparently that's just fine.)

Hitler was mentioned purely to rebut the claims made by multiple posters that being a pet owner is evidence that someone is a kind/caring person. But feel free to misrepresent as much as you like....

I haven't said anything of that nature at all, at any point. I judge nobody.

I don't like other people's dogs in my face, therefore I respect people who don't like dogs, are dog phobic or allergic and I never allow my dogs to impose on anyone.

Not all pet owners are the same.

Well, there's a fairly solid argument that humans wouldn't exist in anything like the numbers they do, were it not for dogs - they're a unique case whereby we evolved together (multiple times), and for a long time neither could thrive the way they did without the other.

For what it's worth, I'm against an awful lot of the uncontrolled breeding that goes on, but that's an entirely different thread. Puppy farms and backyard breeding should result in jail IMO.

How does any of that make them "the best people"? It just makes them people you share an opinion with.