Please help, I cannot decide on my own.

And Scott killed and ate his ponies....

c'mon people, they're animals. It's what they do. They eat each other. It's their job. Don't make it seem morally wrong by humanizing your pet's existance. Cats eat mice. Snakes eat mise. Ferrets kill snakes. Cats, snakes, and ferrets, are not going to hell for eating real food instead of nasty processed kibble. Kibble has rice and grain and old bits of discarded preserved meat in it - can you imagine your cat eating vegetables out in the wild? (Well other than cat nip, which is a drug).

I disagree with "putting things out of their misery" because you never know when somthing is sick or really is going to die, and you're probably ruining some other hungry animal's dinner by smashing it to bits. You don't really know what they want, only that they are in pain. And putting it out of it's misery is a traumatic experience for humans.
note- this doesn't apply to dogs and cats b/c they are dependent on you and not getting them euthanized can be a huge burden on everyone. Also, in this case the doctor tells you that for sure they're going to die anyway. Which doesn't happen with a bird that hit a window, or a sick mouse.

On a side note, fish don't have a complicated enough nerve system to feel pysical pain in the human sense of the word.

[quote="Portal Star"]

On a side note, fish don't have a complicated enough nerve system to feel pysical pain in the human sense of the word.[/quote]

not so - recent experiments show that they do feel fear and pain and have a memory for frightening experiences. Sorry i can't quote the appropriate scientist but there was a very interesting BBC programme not so long ago about the research.

Unecessary cruelty to animals or anything living is the first step to cruelty to humans. Sadists who torture people always started on animals in their youth.

It is not 'sentimental' to wish not to hurt a living thing

- anyway, are humans so superior? I certainly don't think so with the evil going on in the world at the moment - some intelligent civilisation watching us could well decide that there was an infinitely superior species to continue civilisation and do away with mankind as vermin!

Of course animals hunt and kill, they have to for survival, as do nomadic tribes - but here we are talking about 'civilised' people - who know better and have other options.

Actually, I can imagine my cats eating their veggies in the wild, Portal Star. Some of us even raise grass in little pots indoors for them to graze on, though in the wild, stomach contents of the prey serve the same function. They simply won't survive on lean beef.

No, I do not know what vegans feed their cats and dogs.

Cruelty to animals is an entirely different subject than feeding animals other animals. If you like to torture your pets, yes, seek professional help. But do not deny the nature of violence evident in the life cycle. Living requires a certain amount of death.

The grass isn't eaten to sustain on, and they put wheat and rice into the food, in some case vegetables. Read your labels. I mean, the dogs and cats can live off that stuff just fine, but it's not what they would eat if given a choice on the matter.

dogs can eat a vegan diet but cats can't as their digestive system can't cope. They do need some vegetable content as you say.

I'd hate to see a dog living off of a vegetarian diet. Dog's and cat's teeth are clearly shaped to be eating meat, albeit small amounts of vegetable roughage - they don't eat vegetables for sustinance. A Dogs closest descendant is the gray wolf, a pack animal which hunts other small animals. Our domestication of cats and dogs has not changed their basic nutrition requirements.

In some ways, pets are a tribute to humans thinking they are better than all other animals. We tend to have pets with social skills, and those pets generally recognize their owners as the Alpha. We have the pets do our bidding, keep us warm and entertained, and they can help ward off danger. Not to say that having a pet can't be a mutualistic symbiosis, the pet gets the perks of being fed and looked after, but the human is clearly the master in the situation. How would you feel about being some other animal's pet?

cats do NOT have masters!!!

cats are their own 'person' (that isn't anthropormorphisising - there just isn't a right word that i can think of! This is one of the things i love about them and the thing that cat haters can't handle.

Cats live side by side with you and love you entirely on their own terms. They are not pack animals and the 'alpha' thing doesn't work.

Dogs - yes - they are, like wolves, pack animals and the owner should be the alpha.

Yes, cats are more independent, but they are still dependent on you for food and shelter. You get to decide what and when they eat, where they can go, you can even give them away, take them to a shelter, etc. It is a paternalistic relationship, with you as the caretaker, and that makes you dominant. Cats are very free-spirited animals, but a domesticated house cat is by all means a dependent cat. If your cat lived out in the wild and dropped by to say hello from time to time (and wasn't dependent on you for food), that would be different.

Do you imply that because dogs have a strict social heirarchy they can't "love on their own terms," or have personalities?

My cats have always been allowed outside so they are free to move on or make other arrangements and i could do nothing about it!

Some cats find alternative homes - my daughter has a visiting cat who adores her - she has a perfectly good and loving home but the owners have 2 other cats and children - given half a chance she would move in permanently with my daughter!

As for when they eat - mmm you decide when you put it down - have you ever tried to MAKE a cat eat? and if the quality is not what they expect they'll go for days refusing to eat!

Paternalistic yes.

Your biggest mistake Harmonic, is thinking "there is no waste of nature."

Natural processes are phenominally wasteful (survival rates in the wild, are tiny compared to 'births'); it is the only way such a sloppy, enethical, and inefficient system has of ensuring survival.
It matters little what you do; in the natural world something will end up suffering, no matter how you try to intervene.
Just don't try to justify it with theory, and conventional wisdoms; nothing matters to tha natural process; some things will live, and some things will die.
As with the 'upper' (?) members of the food chain, 'consumption' is the name of the game!
There is no logic to it.

Speaking of illogical, inefficient creatures, how about them pandas?

What have the pandas ever done to you? or do you speak, to the initiated, of some totemic symbol of a sporting team?

They only eat a single food source, bamboo, which takes so much out of them to digest they are too tired to reproduce properly. Sounds illogical and inefficient to me. Without human intervention, they would be extinct by now, of their own accord. They are awfully cute though.

Bit like koalas, which have almost shut their brains down in order to use less calories, in order to survive off their ridiculous diet. Presumably don't have the brains to branch out.

Cute though. Mean bastids, they can be, though.

Does the name "MacDonalds" bring anything to mind (if, being a 'user' you still have one)?

Craven wrote:



Hummmm!

Earlier today I looked at a thread entitled "How do you enrich your social skills?" -- and in that thread, Craven wrote:



Please tell me that I am reading way, way too much into this!

Craven as a "conservative" I was able to deal with.

But Craven as a theist would probably put me over the top.

This is all in jest, right Craven?

Are you pushing to move this discussion to the political threads? :wink:

bi-Polar;
the new master of 'bathroom humour' taken to its logical conclusion............

true, but don't forget, it was humans who destroyed their habitat.


Nature isn't illogical, just immoral.