If you have opinions on this Article, please air them on the Message Board.

My view has always been that there is no place for so called "companion animals" in the present world order.

The present situation is that the vast majority of these animals are only companions when it suits their owners. Many cats are left alone to fend for themselves and dogs spend many hours alone.

The keeping of animals is always exploitative to the extent that they are not there because they chose to be but because their keeper has decided that they want to keep an animal. In other words, the predominant reason is a selfish one. Pet's lives are strictly controlled: when they eat, what they eat, when they exercise, what other animals they are allowed to make contact with and so on. Of course, cats have a greater degree of freedom than dogs.

The fact that over the centuries humans have domesticated animals for their own purposes, doesn't mean that we should continue to do so. Slavery was once widely practiced in the past, but is today just as widely condemned.

As for animals choosing to live closely to us, they did not expect to have to give up their freedom, and the world was a very different place back then. Humans themselves were living in a Low-Tech, close to nature way, not in cities with motor cars and central heating and canned pet food.

I would like to see us move away from a situation where a pet is seen as a natural addition to a family. encouraged by the pet industry of course. The animals that are slaughtered to feed pets is a subject that is rarely discussed.

The comparison with human children is meaningless. Our children are our own offspring, naturally ours to nurture and protect until they become adults themselves. The only animals that have complete freedom and autonomy are wild animals.

I would hope that when accompanying animals in communities died, the replacements would be other humans. The companionship of a non-human animal may have a therapeutic value but so can that of a human. Of course, they are not exactly comparable. "The "everlasting" ability of dog to "forgive" you (no matter what you have done!) and to remain loyal, may be true, but do we deserve that? Isn't that an example of how we exploit these animals for our own selfish ends? With human companions we have to work out our relationships, knowing that we may not be forgiven whatever we do, and that we cannot simply take without giving anything in return.

There is nothing muddled or mistaken that only cats and dogs in need of rescue should be given homes. Unfortunately it does not do anything to solve the underlying problem. The fact that all pets need to be spayed or neutered is more to do with maintaining our control over their lives than the concern about uncontrolled cross breeding, and is another predicament that we have gotten in to by keeping animals as pets. Spaying and neutering animals is committing gross acts of violence against them/ There is also the question of animal rights. Spaying and neutering denies animals the right to mate, to be parents, to have families of their own.

Whilst the present attitude toward pets continues, Dog Homes will never run out of animals. The tragedy is that only a small percentage of abandoned and ill-treated animals are rescued. Last year 20,250 where "put down" in England by local authorities alone.

There is no compassionate way forward that includes companion animals unless these animals are free to come and go as they choose, to be with their own kinds if they wish, and to do all the things that wild animals do. the best way that children can learn to respect, love and value non-human animals is to see them and learn about them in their free an natural state. - Martin Lake.

This article first appeared in "New Leaves" the quarterly publication of MCL - The Movement for Compassionate Living.. Spring 1999 edition.