When an animal is a product, it becomes difficult for us to appreciate the experiential world of the animal from their own perspective. We think about how our pets make us feel, not how our keeping them as pets makes them feel. Ethically, 'consuming' pets is not so different from consuming meat: you have taken the life of an individual animal, and you have chosen to participate in an industry that imposes suffering. A large commercial puppy, kitty mill or any other warehoused animal waiting to be shipped to pet stores isn’t so different from a gruesome factory farm. If you want to enjoy your pet/steak, best avert your eyes.
JESSICA PIERCE: Our love affair with pets has never been more fully on display. The numbers bear this out. More than 1 billion animals are now being kept as pets around the world, with half of all households having one. In the U.S.,where pet-related spending topped $100 billion in 2021 for the first time ever, that figure climbs to a staggering 70%.
Conventional wisdom is that more pets equals more happiness. The expansion of pet keeping is a sign, the pet industry says, of an expanding love of animals and an expanding circle of overall happiness. People are happy because they have animal companions. Animals are happy because … well, we don’t ever really ask this question. If we did, we might not like the answer. The truth is that pet keeping often causes significant harm to animals. And as an ethicist, I am deeply alarmed about the continued growth in pet keeping around the world…
Some harms are what you might call attitudinal. In buying and selling animals, and in using them for our own gratification—whether to provide amusement or emotional fulfillment, or to make a profit—we are treating them as objects, not subjects; as commodities and not as living beings with inherent value. When an animal is a product, it becomes difficult for us to appreciate the experiential world of the animal from their own perspective. We think about how our pets make us feel, not how our keeping them as pets makes them feel.
Other harms are more direct. A robust scientific literature leaves no doubt about the anguish pets experience. Physical confinement, social isolation, and chronic exposure to stress—the hallmarks of captivity—can lead to measurable physiological damage, including loss of neural plasticity and a long-term activation of the fight-or-flight response, which can affect immune function, increase the risk of chronic disease, and shorten lifespans. The psychological anguish of captivity manifests in certain harmful behaviors called stereotypies, like a ferret pacing back and forth in her cage, a parrot plucking out all her feathers, or a dog “air-snapping” or obsessively chasing his tail…
At a systemic level, the industry accepts significant animal suffering and mortality as part of its business model. One 2014 investigation of a major exotic pet wholesaler in Texas found that 80% of some 26,400 animals representing 171 species were “grossly sick, injured, or dead.” Ethically, consuming pets is not so different from consuming meat: you have taken the life of an individual animal, and you have chosen to participate in an industry that imposes suffering on living beings. A large commercial puppy or kitty mill or a warehouse full of snakes, geckos, and other small critters waiting to be shipped to pet stores isn’t so different from a gruesome factory farm. If you want to enjoy your pet/steak, best avert your eyes…
Is it possible to form companionable relationships with animals without causing them or the planet harm? Certainly. But it would look very different from our current practices. Human-animal ties would be mutual and freely chosen—friendships, not ownership. Captivity would no longer be the central mechanism holding animals within a human’s orbit. Reducing the number of pets around the world, mitigating the worst impacts on animals already living in captivity, and making their physical and emotional flourishing our top priority can get us closer to the goal. SOURCE…
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