4: COMPANION ANIMALS

1)Question/Attack: "What about pets? Certainly there is nothing wrong with that."/"having animal companions teaches people to care for animals."

Response: a) How would you feel if you were born and taken away from your mother against your will (or how would you feel if you were the mother and your offspring was taken away from you by force--just to be given to some human who may treat your child horribly?) and had your genitals cut off? The pet industry is a form of slavery. Except under the best circumstances, a pet is a prisoner of human society. A human decides where it goes, what it does, what it eats, how it lives and how it dies. 

Response: b) When humans can take care of their own offspring properly, then maybe you could make some argument for it--but until then, and until humans can stop the pet euthanasia problem and animal abuse issue you haven't much of a leg to stand on.

Response: c) It is debatable whether having companion animals makes one treat animals with more compassion and respect or makes humans take them for granted. We know that people abuse cats and dogs, and dump them in parks or shelters when they get tired of them. If only one human did this--it would still be worse than if pets were not bred at all.

Response: d) One can argue that we should take care of unwanted animals that are dumped in shelters as opposed to euthanizing them. But whatever the case, we should not allow the commercial breeding of animals to be sold in stores. All should come from shelters.

2) Question/attack: "don't you think you would be being cruel to a dog if you didn't feed it meat? Surely that's what it would eat if you left it alone to fend for itself?"

Response: a) Yes, a dog would most probably eat meat if it chose it's own meals. Can't deny that. But it is the cruelty issue which I would focus on with your question. If the cruelty issue is truly of concern, then what about all the other animals that will be kept in poor conditions, and made to suffer to be canned and fed to the dog?   Perhaps, if it is cruel to not feed a dog meat (something i don't actually agree with), then while keeping animals, some kind of cruelty may be unavoidable. Which is why I believe we need to reconsider our position with Companion Animals (see http://www.fruitnut.net/html/Articles/Pets.htm for an excellent article on companion animals)