howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#1
This has to be one of the most stupid articles I have ever read. Speaking as someone that has had one of each over the last 25 years I feel qualified to refute the argument. I got a an obese 7 year old Lhasa Apso from a rescue centre and she played the game of slobbering all over me initially then turned into the most manipulative creature imaginable.
When I moved here 15 years ago Calais the cat moved in as a kitten just to avoid living in a menagerie next door, played up the cute bit by nibbling my ear and biting the flowers of my house plants but soon learned how to treat me as the head waiter.
Not sure if it is animal thing or a female thing but both knew/know how to get one over on me.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/01/should-we-stop-keeping-pets-why-more-and-more-ethicists-say-yesGuest 1033- Registered: 23 Aug 2013
- Posts: 509
#2
I don't know if its just me, but it seems strange that academics would spend all this time researching the empathy of a rat, and how terrible it must be for a dog to have to sleep in a basket (in my house with pillows and blankets), and seem to spend no time at all considering what it must be like for a human to be cooped up a couple of hundred feet up in the air on a potential bonfire, or any or all of the other things that we have to 'put up' with.
Until the majority of pet owners neuter their pets (can't do that, no freedom of choice) then we will have an excess of puppies, kittens and baby rats with abandonment issues, all looking for horrible humans like me to look after them. The alternative is of course to let them all wander the streets until they starve, a much nicer solution.
What a total waste of an expensive education.
Brian Dixon, Jan Higgins and howard mcsweeney1 like this
Guest 1416- Registered: 20 Nov 2014
- Posts: 77
#3
This is an interesting article. There is a lot in it I agree with. For one thing, being guardians and not owners of the animals in our lives. However I believe that dogs, and probably cats, have determined to be companions to us human animals. That said there should be a positive list of species imported into the UK, or any country on the planet, that should never be considered as pets. All exotic creatures which require different climate conditions. I know the term exotic means different things to different people. I understand the 75% of all exotics imported into the UK perish in their first year. That's about three quarters of a million creatures! It shouldn't happen.
A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.