Keeping Pets Is Reprehensible

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Turtle

Here's a starter page I was going to post presently: >> Industry Statistics & Trends

43.4 billion? A drop in the bucket, how much money is spent on frivolous things like the fashion industry? How many suits of clothing does one person really need? I could get by easily with three changes of clothes. why do people need dozens of pairs of shoes, dozens of shirts, dresses, dozens of pairs of paints, hat's, coats, many people have hundreds of changes of clothes they never wear! wouldn't a few jump suits be plenty for anyone? and if the jump suits were the same for everyone then the cost would be low. we as a culture waste so much money it's mind boggling. but who decides what is waste and what is necessary for our sanity? Personally I think pets contribute more to our culture than fashion or professional sports so maybe it's a good thing I cannot decide for everyone!

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by TheoreticalFive

No matter what it is someone is always willing to take part in it. People buy clothes with very little practical use in the name of "Fashion". ...

Originally Posted by Sanctusonio

Turtle, I think it is negligible, as many other said this is not even a drop in the sea. ...

Originally Posted by jabbit too

Why must responsible people thus feel ashamed if they choose to own a pet that provide them pleasure, and gets treated like a child , when half the worlds population breed like rabbits, with no regard where their next meal will come from?

Originally Posted by Mooner Tanner Manner

Now that I can really agree with, I would liked to see some figures on the real cost of keeping pets compared to other less than necessary things humans do all the time....
&
43.4 billion? A drop in the bucket, how much money is spent on frivolous things like the fashion industry?

Is it fair to say that all these arguments above make for straw dogs? That is to say, they do not deny the reprehensibility of keeping pets, but seek to lessen that reprehensibility by comparing it to other examples of human activity worthy of rebuke?

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Turtle

Is it fair to say that all these arguments above make for straw dogs? That is to say, they do not deny the reprehensibility of keeping pets, but seek to lessen that reprehensibility by comparing it to other examples of human activity worthy of rebuke?

Then I categorically deny it Can you support your contention?

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

Then I categorically deny it. Can you support your contention?

Yes of course. My contention is supported by your contradiction, which is to say that if there is nothing reprehensible about keeping pets, then there is no need to defend the practice by comparing it to others, or by any other means.

On to more points I haven't addressed.

Originally Posted by T5

I however am partial to keeping animals for companions. Why can't there be cross species friends? Someone for who sexual and other psychological boundaries don't exist.

Originally Posted by Claymanator

I frequently adopt a variety of reptiles and arachnids that were previously pets and their owners became disenchanted with them. You could call them pets since I enjoy them but I don't usually acquire them for that purpose, more often to preserve their life. This is one of the reasons I am against the industry marketing pets like iguanas and large snakes. People think they're neat until they realize how big they get and then they don't want them anymore.

Originally Posted by Craigalon

In addition to direct benefits such as those Moontanman mentions above, it’s generally accepted that responsible pet keeping provides health benefits, too.

In short, the physical acts involved in having pets – feeding them, playing with them, and simply petting them – appears to be physically and mentally good for most people. Though I’ve not read a specific study supporting the claim, I think studies have shown that, even controlling for other causes (eg: perhaps healthy people are more likely to keep pets, so the correlation between pet keeping and heath does not indicate the first contributing the latter), pets significantly promote physical and mental health.

Originally Posted by Seeders

They do keep the mice population out doors rather than in my house. Trespassers to this rule will be violated, so not only do they provide me with entertainment and companionship, they serve a purpose. They have a job they do.

All of these arguments seek to put an economic value on pet keeping, and I have no problem with keeping working animals. However, I find it unsatisfying to accept a general claim of a working benefit, such as companionship, followed by the claim it is somehow beyond enumeration. Shall a person acquire a Doctor's prescription perhaps, before taking ownership of a pet for companionship?

Originally Posted by Reasonspeanutbuttercup

It isn't keeping pets that is reprehensible.

What's reprehensible is poorly keeping pets.

Only one of those two is dependent on the other. If no pets are kept, no pets are kept poorly.

[modest]

Thinking about what it would be like getting rid of pets... [beware occasional sarcasm ]...

It's an end to a 43.4 billion dollar per year industry which would be... [fill-in-the-blank-with-your-favorite-negative-connotation-word] or so say the people who work at PetSmart. I'm sorry, used to work at PetSmart

On a positive note, there will be no more cats hunting robins, blue jays, and doves on my street. Of course, the birds are also trying to figure out where the bird seed in the bird feeder went. Sorry birds--people are starving, ya know? I think the value of a human life is a little higher than feeding the red birds on sunday morning. Besides, PetSmart is closed - where am I supposed to buy bird seed? Wait, I think someone mentioned a black market of pet supplies... Let me get my bullet proof vest and glock-9, I'm gettin' an 8-ball of bird seed

Horses on the other hand think they're getting a pass. First, they don't consider themselves pets. Second, they think they're too useful for humans to do without. What they fail to realize is that may be useful, but they're also delicious and people are starving. If wishes were horses, we'd all be eating steak after all. Right Mr. Ed?

I'm guessing by the time the last domesticated dog dies we'd have a completely functioning robotic one to take its place. Synthetic pets will be all the rave. Since they're fake, you don't have to feed them food. While you'd think this would go a long way toward not offending the starving people who used to work at PetSmart... For some reason it just pisses them off

Incidentally, the extra power needed to run all these synthetic pets has depleted the world's fossil fuels leading to a shortage of heating oil and natural gas. So, people are freezing to death. Once again, you'd think they'd be content knowing their synthetic pets will live on... But, no -- It just pisses them off

And, you know what the really sad thing in all this is... Go look at your dog or cat right now. Look it right in their eyes.... It has no idea that the price it takes to fill up its feeding dish every day could feed a whole family in Africa. Literally every breath your animal takes is one less breath that some poor orphan in East Timor will have. Every comfortable night little Mittens spends curled up on his hypoallergenic pillow from PetSmart is one night closer to the end for little Kuan-yin. Nope, Little Mittens doesn't even know

~modest

My cat Cloe:

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Turtle

I find keeping pets reprehensible in a world where people are starving to death every minute. Not only the direct loss of human food to pets, but the energy used to produce, package, distribute, and sell it, as well as the same waste in resources for pet products other than food.

Put explicitly and symbolically, this argument is

1. A uses resources B required by C.
2. There isn’t enough B for C.
3. C is preferable to/more important than A.
4. Therefore, A is wrong.

In this example, A = keeping pets, B = food, energy, and “resources for pet products other than food”, and C = feeding people.

1 and 3 are, I think, true, 2 not.

Shortages of food and energy for humans, and many other essentials and luxuries, is I think, due not to a inherent natural shortage of these resources, but due to intentional restriction of their supply. Arguments containing (and thus promoting) the hidden assumption that the opposite is true are, IMHO, worse than merely false – they can and do promote incorrect and destructive decision-making by individuals and governments, harming individuals and societies, and retarding the advancement of science and civilization.

On the surface, the suggestion that the keeping of pets should be discouraged in order to reduce starvation of humans seems mostly harmless (at least to humans), regardless of whether it is correct. However, I believe it and arguments like it – which include arguments against space exploration, basic science, and art – are potentially terribly harmful. By promoting the false assumption of scarcity of essential resources and commodities, they promote less harmless seeming arguments. Once acceptance of the assumption that there is not enough of a critical resource (B) for a particular collection of people (C) to survive and prosper has been achieved, it’s easy to gain acceptance of truly terrible act, up to and including the killing of other people (A) competing for the resource.

Note that I am not making the “slippery slope” argument that prohibiting the keeping of pets leads in increments to genocide. I am arguing that promoting the incorrect belief that resources such as food are in critically short supply by such means as noting that pets consume the same food resources as humans, does.

More discussion of this idea – the scarcity/abundance dichotomy – appears in the thread Moneyless society : Would it benefit society?, and such post as If I may engage in a fit of opinionated, wild speculation….

[Overdog]

I don't know how my family would have made it without dogs, growing up in the backwoods of Alabama in the '50s.

I don't know if you would call these dogs pets or not, but some of them were, at least to us kids.

The primary source of animal protein for my family of eight was what we caught and what we killed. Catfish, Deer, Rabbits and Squirrels mostly, supplemented with Chickens we raised and the eggs they produced. We had a few pigs, but only enough to kill one a year.

Life would have been very hard without those dogs. A dog can flush a squirrel you'll never see, or a rabbit or Deer.

Extremely valuable pet to have when times get tough.

If we get rid of Dogs as Pets, they may become nearly extinct. They depend on us, as we have depended on them. I think it would be shortsighted and unwise not to keep them around...

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

Please help me help this dog, please send money. Americans send a avalanch of millions of dollars.

Please help me find housing, drug treatment, job training and employment for this Man when he gets out. Crickets chirping.

Acknowledged. Your pictures being worth 2,000 words, I have only left them out in the interest of brevity.

On a side note, it was a local news story on a pet monkey refuge that prompted me to opine on the subject. Yes, they asked for money.

If Japan is any judge, the problem is not limited to the US. (scroll down for article) >> Pet Fashion Trends

[Cedars]

Originally Posted by Turtle

Originally Posted by Seeders
They do keep the mice population out doors rather than in my house. Trespassers to this rule will be violated, so not only do they provide me with entertainment and companionship, they serve a purpose. They have a job they do. -end Cedars

All of these arguments seek to put an economic value on pet keeping, and I have no problem with keeping working animals. However, I find it unsatisfying to accept a general claim of a working benefit, such as companionship, followed by the claim it is somehow beyond enumeration. Shall a person acquire a Doctor's prescription perhaps, before taking ownership of a pet for companionship?

I cant believe you ignored the dung beetles...

I am not exactly sure what you mean by the above. Could you clarify? As I interpret it, you are stating that their companionship has no economic value, or that the value can be easily calculated or that a working pet cant be evaluated on multiple levels; and I really dont understand the suggestion that one should be evaluated by a doctor first.

-Reaching for the ritalin-

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by CraigD

Put explicitly and symbolically, this argument is

1. A uses resources B required by C.
2. There isn’t enough B for C.
3. C is preferable to/more important than A.
4. Therefore, A is wrong.

In this example, A = keeping pets, B = food, energy, and “resources for pet products other than food”, and C = feeding people.

1 and 3 are, I think, true, 2 not.

...
Note that I am not making the “slippery slope” argument that prohibiting the keeping of pets leads in increments to genocide. I am arguing that promoting the incorrect belief that resources such as food are in critically short supply by such means as noting that pets consume the same food resources as humans, does.

More discussion of this idea – the scarcity/abundance dichotomy – appears in the thread Moneyless society : Would it benefit society?, and such post as If I may engage in a fit of opinionated, wild speculation….

Interesting distinctions. It seems you have couched your argument for the falsity of 2 in the truth or falsity of another debate. A hot one no less if potential terrible harm is at stake.

I'll try this parry.

Your #2 is a mischaracterization of a general implication in the OP, i.e., keeping pets is wasteful. Where waste is using up something unnecessarily, waste is waste no matter the supply. I might rewrite #2 to say that B is wastefully utilized and C is negatively affected by the waste. Therefore, A is worthy of rebuke.