Ethics of keeping pets?

[Emma G]

Is it ethical or with the nature of animals to keep them as pets?

It seems that it is not. Most all animals are not domesticated and suited to living in homes or confinement like zoos, no matter how simulated the environment. Animals should still be left to live in the wild.

Even common 'domesticated' animals like dogs and cats are better suited to living in packs, and it is not natural to spay or neuter animals and cut off this vital organ of life, feed them pet food, and make them abide by rules of houses like crating or sleeping alone.

Why do so many vegans espouse keeping pets? It seems no more ethical than using them in sports, eating them, or using them for other misguided human motives.


So, why do people keep pets?

[joelr]

Are you asking this from the point of view of a pet owner (current or past) or as one who never experienced living with a pet.
If your parents had a pet that counts also.

[Emma G]

Why does it matter? I am asking from an objective and ideal view.

Personally, my family does have a pet dog, and we've had several within my lifetime. We also used to have fish, and when I was little, I always wanted a pet bird, but my parents said that it was cruel to keep them in a cage. I understand that, but then why have a dog that is also kept away from living with other dogs or running in the wild, and has to sleep on a separate bed on the floor? I also used to love to ride horses. But I would not do any of these things now, and I even avoid going to the country club with my family where there is horse racing and polo as a central activity.

Living at school, I will not keep pets, and I will not keep pets in my house when I have my own family.

It seems that humans keep pets because they are partly disconnected from nature, or even emotionally somehow, or for novelty. But other animals should not suffer to fulfill these needs, which should be met in more natural ways.

So, no, it definitely looks wrong to keep pets from an objective view, and I will not do this in the future.

[Parthon]

It's definately inethical to have a pet if the pet suffers, but besides that it's one giant grey area.

What about having a dog, taking care of it, making sure it's well fed and plenty of clean water, and can run, play and socialise how it likes. It might be cut off from it's pack, but it won't suffer from attacks from other dogs or wild animals, it's far less dangerous in the family home than it is in the wild, and many dogs love the company of humans and prefer to live with them.

It depends on if it's ethical to *YOU* or not. It doesn't matter so much what other people do, it matters what you do.

Objectively the world doesn't care any which way. It just is. Ethics are a human theory, purely created. There are no ethics in the greater world, just the ones you have.

[Emma G]

Not true. There are absolute ethics, just as there is absolute gravity on the physical plane.

Not suffering is not the same as living natural life. No matter how comfortable the pet's makeshift environment is, it is still not natural.

It is akin to a luxury prison.

[Indiana]

Originally Posted by Emma G

Not true. There are absolute ethics, just as there is absolute gravity on the physical plane.

Not suffering is not the same as living natural life. No matter how comfortable the pet's makeshift environment is, it is still not natural.

It is akin to a luxury prison.

Not true. Idealising the 'natural life' creates a false ideal.

Dogs, for example, have been selectively bred for centuries to identify with a life that includes humans. A human family is just as much a pack as a group of dogs. For a conscious dog owner, the roles are just as clearly established, and the dog benefits from the social interaction and purpose of its role - working dog or companion animal.

The natural life is not so wonderful for many animals. "Nature, red in tooth and claw" represents an existence of struggle to survive, unattended injury, illness, sporadic hunger and often boredom. How is this better than the life of a well cared for pet?

Many people use the same argument against zoos. "Well, in the wild, lions range over more than 100km a month". That's mostly to find food. If food is readily supplied, they will stay in one place.

I have two dogs. They are well fed, well exercised, healthy, they sleep in my bed with me, and they are well loved. Would they be better off or 'happier' as scavengers on the street? I think not.

[Emma G]

If you had your basic needs brought to you in your house, would you be happy being kept there?

And, are your dogs neutered? It's true that humans have created animals that tolerate being kept indoors and in yards, but this is still not ideal.
Even animals that are given simulated habitats in zoos are thwarted from living their natural lives.

Listen really carefully to the animals and what their true spirits are in tune with.

[Holistic Star]

My cat is 14 years old. He has always been free to come and go as he pleases (cat flap is always open). There are plenty of other cats nearby if he wanted to scavenge in a pack, but he has always attacked any other cat that comes anywhere near our garden. He does eat the odd mouse and there is lots of wildlife around that he could eat but seems to prefer cat biscuits! The opportunity is there for him to be wild, but he's never taken it up.

He choses to sleep on my feet every night (I don't make him, he comes and gets me at 11pm if I'm not in bed already and makes a fuss till I go to bed!)

We had rabbits when I was little. We let them run about the garden all day and they never tried to escape and could have done easily if they wanted to. We locked them away at night, but that was for their own protection from night preditors such as owls, foxes and cats.

I've never owned anything in a cage, I agree I wouldn't like seeing something locked into a tiny space all it's life. But with any animals I've kept I've always let them have the option of leaving and they don't.

[aelle]

Originally Posted by Emma G

it is not natural to spay or neuter animals and cut off this vital organ of life...

Are you looking for what is natural, or what is ethical? Spaying your pet means less unwanted youngs that would likely end up killed (euthanized by animal control, killed by the hazards of stray life, starved to death), it means less suffering for your pet (an adult who cannot mate but is subject to their hormonal drive is in pain) and less health hazard (spaying bitches reduces their risk of breast cancer, for example, and neutering a male obviously cancels the risk of testicular cancer). It is technically interventionist and "unnatural", but it definitely is ethical.

Originally Posted by Emma G

Why do so many vegans espouse keeping pets? It seems no more ethical than using them in sports, eating them, or using them for other misguided human motives.

Vegans (at least all the ones I know, and myself) certainly do not support buying pets. They do not support breeding animals for money as this means using them as a commodity, trading quality of life for economical concerns, and creating more pets in a world already full of unwanted strays, therefore condemning some of them to death.
However, since we do not live in a vacuum and know that if the dogs at the pound stay unadopted they will be killed for lack of space and resources, it is a more ethical choice to adopt from the pound than not to adopt at all.

And I'll give a big +1 to Indiana: nature is not benevolent, natural life is far from an ideal life.
Do you, as a human, honestly miss being a slave to your instincts and those of others? Being impregnated (most likely against your will, since females are naturally weaker than males) at 13 with a high chance of death as you give birth, living in the fear of predators, surviving only if the strongest of the pack deigns to let you live, scavenging for food? Our companion animals gain just as much as us from an environment where quality of life is favored over nature.

[Angela]

I have been tamed by animals who domesticated me. Was that unethical of them?

[aelle]

Originally Posted by Angela

I have been tamed by animals who domesticated me. Was that unethical of them?

Hear, hear. When my cat sleeps with me... it's because I'm in her bed!

[Emma G]

It is not 'ethical' to castrate animals, in order to fit into the lives and confines that humans create. Another wrong does not right the first. They shouldn't be kept in the first place.

Would you want to be domesticated and castrated, kept from socializing or running in the wild with others of your species, crated, leashed, or made to eat packaged food, as do modern day domesticated animals?

The pets may seem satisfied, but no animal can be fully actualized and live true to its nature under the roof of a human.

[Angela]

Then you absolutely shouldn't do it.

[aggie]

i speak as someone who has loved animals all my life and had all kinds of pets...none currently because i do not feel, at this time, i can provide the attention needed and am not home enough....many years ago i had seven cats at one time...2 were give aways and the rest were abandoned strays...all but one obtained as a kitten. they had many health problems mostly from being exposed to the wild "natural" life at an early age...i spent a lot of money and much agony when they were gone. cats have not adapted to domestic life as well as dogs...we have all but destroyed their immune systems so they need to innoculated for everything. ideally they would do better with a raw diet...but that carries a risk of disease as well, as i found out with the one indoor/outdoor cat i had. we have put them in this position thru over breeding and under responsibility for the life of anything we intially decide to be responsible for. because of the over population...those dogs, mostly cats when they become a nusiance can be abused, posioned, run over or captured to be killed in a shelter...natural is not so natural for them anymore and the causes of suffering and death are many. dogs have adapted better to domestic life...and i come from an area where dogs left to their own pack mentality more often than not become dangerous to humans and other animals as the instinct to kill for food or survival begins to surface. again their fate can be abuse or killed. some stray cats and dogs end up rounded up for lab research...can we say unethical here! i could go on and on...but i think you get my point...man has upset the natural world way to much for most domesticated creatures to return to it.

[Ariel Bravy]

Originally Posted by Emma G

There are absolute ethics, just as there is absolute gravity on the physical plane.

No. It's all relative. Our physical reality itself IS relative. The absolute is only found in the absolute, in that which does NOT change, in the eternal Self that you really are.

How can something be absolute on only the physical plane. What's truly absolute must be absolute everywhere, or else it's simply "relatively absolute" and thus relative... If it's truly absolute, it must be absolute through all planes and every dimension, physical and non-physical.

Existence is absolute. Consciousness is absolute. Ethics and morality are relative, products of the human mind.

Here's an Abraham-Hicks video wonderfully addressing this very point.

Originally Posted by Parthon

It depends on if it's ethical to *YOU* or not. It doesn't matter so much what other people do, it matters what you do.

Objectively the world doesn't care any which way. It just is. Ethics are a human theory, purely created. There are no ethics in the greater world, just the ones you have.

Bingo. Parthon hit the nail on the head.

Life itself just is. It's meaningless. It's a blank slate which affords us the grand opportunity to CREATE whatever it is that we want.

If we say it's ethical, we'll experience that. If we say it's unethical, we'll experience that.

Literally, whatever you say goes.

[aggie]

hmmmm, i see what you are saying, but it still becomes a problem if one's reallity or "lack of ethics" affects or harms those around one.......

[Ariel Bravy]

Originally Posted by aggie

hmmmm, i see what you are saying, but it still becomes a problem if one's reallity or "lack of ethics" affects or harms those around one.......

When you really dive deep into your heart, do you really see this being your default state of being?

There's this story being told of original sin, that we are inherently evil and if we don't put limitations on ourselves, we will be horrible people. For we are bad at our cores. Who we really are is inferior.

Yet one of the beautiful things about awakening is that who you really are turns out to be more loving and divine than anything the mind can imagine. You ARE Divine Love itself.

Divine Love needs no ethics. It needs no rules. It just loves, and everything else takes care of itself. Call it flow of the river, synchronicity, miracles, the law of attraction, life supporting life, everything being one... call it what you wish, but there's a really beautiful way that life unfolds when it's no longer being judged, resisted, or attempted to be controlled by the mind.

It's freedom. Liberation. It's like there's a tremendous burden that gets lifted off your shoulders. You literally feel lighter in so many ways. Enlightenment.

Though this really is something that we all must find out individually for ourselves. Hearing the words, as inspiring or uplifting as they may be, their best purpose is simply to be a pointer towards what they point to. The words are not the truth, but something to be dropped altogether as you BE the Truth that you are.

Namaste.

[aggie]

i think what you are saying sounds absolutely wonderful...and i believe that is the way it was meant to be....but i don't believe that is how much of the world really works...i think it is a horrible reality and i don't think it has anything to do with original sin or anything else some people think is a reality forced upon them....lack of ethics is learned just as surely as the enlightnenment you speak of and like it or not it still battles upon this earth in my opinion...but what you speak of is a lovely aspiration.

[Ariel Bravy]

Enlightenment is not learned any more than existing or being is learned. It has nothing to do with mind. Awareness isn't learned. It just is, being aware, because that's what awareness does.

The "world out there" that you speak of (which doesn't actually exist) is collectively created by the people of the world's consciousness. Like a multi-faceted diamond, the version of the world YOU experience is completely and utterly a product of your own state of being.

This is why the whole "When you change the way you see the world, the world you see changes" works the way it does.

Ultimately NOTHING OUT THERE CHANGES. It's impossible. Everything already exists here and now simultaneously. YOU change. YOUR vibration and YOUR state of being changes and thus you give yourself a new perspective of the infinite, experience another facet of the totality. Everything exists now. It is up to you to choose what version of All That Is you're going to sing with in this moment.

As we all seek to raise up our own personal level of consciousness, the "world's" consciousness increases automatically, for there is no such thing as the world's consciousness independent of man's consciousness. There is only One Consciousness, and you are it. Everything is One.

This is why the whole "be the change you wish to see in the world" understanding is so powerful.

You and I ARE the world. It is not something we are subject to or must fight against.

Sure there's been some pretty unethical things happening up to now. This is simply a reflection of the choices made within the level of consciousness that people abided in at that time. That was then, this is now.

It is a wonderful time to be alive, for all that is now changing and we have the opportunity to choose again and create anew.

[aggie]

i totally agree with you...and i would like to at least believe that that is how i live my life sometimes...sometimes it is a pure joy in just being, even with the hurdles...but some days it is hard to block out all the pain out there....

[Indiana]

Originally Posted by Emma G

If you had your basic needs brought to you in your house, would you be happy being kept there?

And, are your dogs neutered? It's true that humans have created animals that tolerate being kept indoors and in yards, but this is still not ideal.
Even animals that are given simulated habitats in zoos are thwarted from living their natural lives.

Listen really carefully to the animals and what their true spirits are in tune with.

Well, in the case of my dogs, it seems they are quite happy to stay in my house. They can easily get in and out of the cat door and out to the street from there. But they don't. If I leave the back door open (which I often do) they are happier to run around out back (or sleep in the sun on the deck. Dogs spend up to 15 hours a day sleeping).

When I go out, I usually take them, so they are in and out of the house almost as much as me. I rarely leash them unless we are going somewhere with heavy traffic, as I would hate for them to be startled onto the road and end up as road kill, as do many animals living in the wild (perhaps this represents more 'actualisation' to you?) and they choose to trot along beside me. If they wanted to run off, they could.

As for diet, I prepare them raw food that is close to what nature intended, but with care taken to avoid some of the dangerous aspects (infected meat, bones that are too big for them to safely eat).

I realise not all pets are well looked after but I think for those of us who are concerned with animal welfare, it is best to lead by example, rather than try to tell everyone that they have to act in a certain way.

You haven't incidentally, answered why a 'wild' lifestyle is so great for animals when it is, in many cases, nasty, brutish and short, as the saying goes.

[Emma G]

Ariel, that is the fallacy of 'out of the picture' perspective.

You can say that if you go up high enough into earth's atmosphere, there is no gravity. But that doesn't change how one lives on earth on the physical plane.

When you are on earth and part of humanity, there is an absolute north, an absolute light source, and absolute ethics.


Within the frame of life, these absolutes apply to all of life. What is ethical is universal to all of life here.

[Emma G]

Indiana, you have also created an environment of dependency for the dogs.

Also, you are not speaking absolutely, as the environment that humans have created cause this overpopulation of dogs, and traffic that is deadly to them. Again, protecting dogs from other man-made dangers doesn't justify breeding and keeping them in the first place.

Length of life also doesn't justify keeping animals as pets. Would animals prefer to live confined or dependent lives, rather than liberated and natural ones?

[Indiana]

Originally Posted by Emma G

Would animals prefer to live confined or dependent lives, rather than liberated and natural ones?

That's a very good question. How do you think we should go about answering it?

[aggie]

answering this question will depend on if you accept the fact that some animals right or wrong have been domesicated for a very long time and "given the choice" some may take off and never come back...but most do because having their needs taken care of is what they are used to. i have seen some pretty miserable, hungry, sad looking stray dogs or cats...that have had their needs taken care of at one time and then abandoned...not a pretty picture...most did not ask to be born, and maybe did not ask to be a pet...but they certainly didn't choose going from being protected and loved and fed to that fate.

[Ariel Bravy]

Originally Posted by Emma G

When you are on earth and part of humanity, there is an absolute north, an absolute light source, and absolute ethics.

When you are living in the dream state, believing in separation as if it was real, believing that the mind can actually be a source of Absolute Truth, yes. This delusion sounds totally logical.

Originally Posted by Emma G

Within the frame of life, these absolutes apply to all of life. What is ethical is universal to all of life here.

What you call life, I call a dream.

There are many dreams... there is the dream of physical reality, dreaming at night, daydreaming with your imagination, astral planes, and many other nonphysical realities... all of which are equally dreams which arise as content within the context of eternal consciousness.

The "laws" that apply in one reality, may or may not apply in every other reality. Thus they are not universal. They are relative.

There are some laws which are truly laws. That is they CAN NOT be broken. They are truly absolute. These are discussed here:

YouTube - Bashar: The 4 Laws of Creation

Even things like gravity, consider the possibility of levitation or otherwise neutralizing the effects of the so-called laws of time and space such as gravity. There is much that we do not know yet. Many more discoveries waiting to be revealed.

It gets really interesting when you start studying things like time slowing down or speeding up, as well as ideas about teleportation or bilocation, where you begin not only bending, but also breaking the so-called rules of time and space.

The laws of physical reality are more like collectively agreed rules that we all abide by because it gives us an experience that we would not otherwise be able to have. Yes we do experience things like gravity, but it's not a hard and fast rule. It too can be broken.

[ferrariguy]

I really can't see you make a case that giving my cats 7-10x the life expectancy by keeping them as pets as unethical.

They mainly live indoors, but I take them in the yard to play. They have ample time to take off if they choose. They don't. They cuddle with me every night and we share a loving bond.

I really don't understand the purpose of this thread, unless you've never had a loving animal as a pet, or you feel the need to be right about something that most people would disagree with you about.

I'm really, really confused.

[aggie]

i think it started out as a legitimate enough question....but i do think now we have reached an impasse and all the talk about truths and realities and absolutes is indeed becoming confusing for at least myself.

[aelle]

Originally Posted by Indiana

You haven't incidentally, answered why a 'wild' lifestyle is so great for animals when it is, in many cases, nasty, brutish and short, as the saying goes.

Quoted because it needs repeating.

[Emma G]

Originally Posted by Emma G

Length of life also doesn't justify keeping animals as pets. Would animals prefer to live confined or dependent lives, rather than liberated and natural ones?