Eating Pets?

[HaruHaru]

I'm fine with it.My boyfriend a few years back went on a few trips with his family to India and Korea.He didn't tell me much but they weren't allowed to eat any form of beef in India,at all.I'd probably die if I couldn't eat beef(tis be my favorite type of meat).Besides that,in Korea he and his parents visited friends of his parents and got to eat dog.I myself wouldn't mind eating a cat or dog.I've eaten horse,but didn't care for it to much.I'm surprised that people are saying that we can't eat "pets" but are fine with eating chickens,pigs, and cows.I love cats and dogs,but would I eat them,yes.I love cows(Boyfriend used to have a pet calf),pigs, and chickens,but I eat them.Do I find any difference between eating something we consider a pet and an anaimal that was supposedly bred for eating? No.

Sorry if I rambled a bit,still tired and kind of busy <.<

[van]

i only like chicken and no other meat. i like chicken but even then, i dont like it on the bones because it is a reminder that what i was eating was once a happy animal. Animals DO have feelings and DO think. I have hundreds of true storys of animals who have actually SAVED human lives.

Chickens are pets.
So, its 'CRUEL. CRUEL. CRUEL' to eat any other animals beside chickens?
Pretty unfair to them if you ask me.
And you are just being a hypocrite.
I could call you sick for eating chickens, how would that make you feel?

I actually never seen a good enough argument for why its wrong to eat animals that is also used as pets. As long as you don't eat your own pet, I can't really see why people love to prioritize animals this way.

If you can eat cow, chicken and pig, why can't you eat a horse or a dog? Because its also something related to pets and "your best friend"..?
I can see how some would have trouble eating specific animals because they have a personal relationship to that specie, but preferring not to eat it and say its downright wrong is something that shouldn't be confused when you state your opinion about it.

In a matter of a fact its really just down to what we from the beginning chose to breed as pet, and what to breed as food. A cow or a pig can be just as good a pet as a dog or a cat. But because cows and pigs have been associated with food for thousands of years, no one really question it when they eat them. It might as well have been dogs or horses that were bred for food (Actually horse is a very common food source many places in the world).

But what exactly gives a dog or a cat more right to live than a cow or a pig? Why are their lives more worthy than slaughter animals? We like to give dogs and cats a more worthy life as a pet because we feel they give us something in return. We believe that they are more important than a cow or a pig because we choose to let them in our house.
Fact is that a cow or a pig is just as much and animal with a life as a dog or a cat is. Just because we chose dogs and cats over cows and pigs, doesn't make them any less living animals.

Some argue that dogs are more intelligent than cows and therefore they shouldn't be eaten. Actually pigs are a lot more intelligent than dogs... So that kinda invalidates that argument.

Fact is that much too many slaughter animals actually live a miserable life when the are mass produced for the food market. Especially a country such as America is one of the worst when it comes to animal rights for slaughter animals. The Documentary "Food Inc" really gives you a new perspective on meat produced in the states.
But it doesn't really seem to bother anyone (for except the vegetarians) when they eat meat, that everything that is mass produced such as cow-, pig- and chicken-meat, means that most likely all of the animals slaughtered is animals who have lived a very miserable life in small stables and bad treatment.

Taking that into account, I would much rather eat a "pet" any day! Especially if its an animal who have lived a long and wonderful life with love. Of course I could never eat any of my own pets because I have a personal relationship with them, but I wouldn't say no to a roasted rabbit, dog or guinea pig if I had the chance, and I know that that animal have lived a respectful life, no matter if it had an owner or not. Just as long as it didn't live in a tiny cage, was thrown about when transported, and wasn't put down humanely... Like the case is for many cows and pigs.

When you think about how terrible most cows and pigs are treated before they get slaughtered and end up on your dinner table, why on earth would anyone say that it would be much better to eat these cows and pigs, than some horse that had a wonderful life on a big field?

If you eat meat, then why do you prioritize this way? Why is cow, pigs and chicken's lifes not anything worth compared to an animal of the same specie of a pet?

Agreed.

[SecretsLive]

We do not NEED to eat them. They were bred to be PETS.
Why would we breed dogs small and give them other characteristics like that to kill them and eat them when we could eat, umn, anything else. They were made to be companions, workers, hunters, etc. NOT FOOD. Why spend years and years of breeding to eat?
Cats barely even have meat on them and horses are meant for racing, riding, and companionship. Why teach horses to be affectionate towards us and let us ride them to slaughter them?

[soratly]

Why do we need to eat animals that we brought into the world? We're the ones who bred wolves into dogs and made cats and domesticated horses. They are meant to be pets, not food. I barely think it's right to eat any animal, let alone a domesticated animal. Why would we spend all of those years of breeding and making hundreds of different breeds and characteristics to put them on a dinner plate? It's just wrong. And I don't agree with horse slaughter either, and I agreen with moondancer101 along with a few other people who are against this.
Although, in other countries like India I think it's fine because they view them how we view cows. We view them as pets, we have no reason to be eating them.

You do know that all the animals that we do breed for food is bred and domesticated as well, right? You can't find any black and white cows in the wild, neither will you find any pigs like those we breed for food either.
Its not really like farmers go hunting for all the animals they produce for the meat market. All animals bred for food have been bred and domesticated for just as long as the horse and the dog. If you want to eat animals that are less domesticated, you should go for something like snakes and parrots.

Technically cats where never intentionally bred for companions. They are the only animal that by their own free will decided to live among humans. Back in the days where cats started to interact with humans, people let them walk around in their towns because they did them no harm and took care of the pests.
So to be completely fair, cats were never domesticated by humans with the purpose of being companions.
Actually, neither did horses or dogs. Dogs were domesticated in order to hunt, not to be a pet. Horses were domesticated to ride on (also for hunting) not for pets. Many horses were also slaughered and eaten back in the old days. People wheren't picky just because they named an animal, if there were not enough food to feed the village.

[moreponiesneeded]

I can agree with most of your posts. It is bad that we think this way about our pets being higher then others. I was speaking my mind about inhumane sluaghter, but I can also say I don't want to sent to a slaughter house. I don't want to be eaten, and if my country feels this way about sending animals to the slaughter house, then why not us.

[ReadingIndigo]

We do not NEED to eat them. They were bred to be PETS.
Why would we breed dogs small and give them other characteristics like that to kill them and eat them when we could eat, umn, anything else. They were made to be companions, workers, hunters, etc. NOT FOOD. Why spend years and years of breeding to eat?
Cats barely even have meat on them and horses are meant for racing, riding, and companionship. Why teach horses to be affectionate towards us and let us ride them to slaughter them?

Horses were originally bred for meat, transportation, power, and milk. Not companionship.

[HaruHaru]

We do not NEED to eat them. They were bred to be PETS.
Why would we breed dogs small and give them other characteristics like that to kill them and eat them when we could eat, umn, anything else. They were made to be companions, workers, hunters, etc. NOT FOOD. Why spend years and years of breeding to eat?
Cats barely even have meat on them and horses are meant for racing, riding, and companionship. Why teach horses to be affectionate towards us and let us ride them to slaughter them?

Cows can be ridden,cows can be comapanions.Yet,we still eat them.Just because horses are used for different reasons in the United States such as eating,cows are sacred in India.Same with pigs.Pigs are very intellegent creatures,yet we eat them still.

Also,to kill humans is murder,therfore illegal.Animals are not as intellegent as us,so they don't know they're being sent to a slaughter house.I myself do not support inhumane slaughtering,but as long as it's humane I'm all for it.

[Sunfang]

We do not NEED to eat them. They were bred to be PETS.
Why would we breed dogs small and give them other characteristics like that to kill them and eat them when we could eat, umn, anything else. They were made to be companions, workers, hunters, etc. NOT FOOD. Why spend years and years of breeding to eat?
Cats barely even have meat on them and horses are meant for racing, riding, and companionship. Why teach horses to be affectionate towards us and let us ride them to slaughter them?

Horses were originally bred for meat, transportation, power, and milk. Not companionship.

As were most animals to my understanding, such as the cow and dog (minus the milk xD). I know of no animal that was bred for domestication purely for companionship. In example, Native Americans didn't domesticate their dogs (I forget what the breed is called) for companions. Dogs weren't companions to Natives Americans. They were there to do work, to be food in hard times, and to aid in hunting when needed.
And....we have livestock because it is a quicker, simpler, and more effective means for meat production.

[soratly]

We do not NEED to eat them. They were bred to be PETS.
Why would we breed dogs small and give them other characteristics like that to kill them and eat them when we could eat, umn, anything else. They were made to be companions, workers, hunters, etc. NOT FOOD. Why spend years and years of breeding to eat?
Cats barely even have meat on them and horses are meant for racing, riding, and companionship. Why teach horses to be affectionate towards us and let us ride them to slaughter them?

Horses were originally bred for meat, transportation, power, and milk. Not companionship.

As were most animals to my understanding, such as the cow and dog (minus the milk xD). I know of no animal that was bred for domestication purely for companionship. In example, Native Americans didn't domesticate their dogs (I forget what the breed is called) for companions. Dogs weren't companions to Natives Americans. They were there to do work, to be food in hard times, and to aid in hunting when needed.
And....we have livestock because it is a quicker, simpler, and more effective means for meat production.

I don't think anyone have ever eaten cat as a steady source of food. But as I mentioned earlier, they weren't technically ever domesticated intentionally anyway

[SecretsLive]

Dog are now being breed to be companions, think of chihuahuas and yorkies, were they bred to not mbe companions? Dogs are companion animals now. Not food. I don't care what you guys say, yes I agree that horses are no better than cows and dogs are no better than anything else, but have you ever seen a cow rescue a person from a frozen pond? Dogs save people and were bred over many years to become companions, from hunter to friend. Yes, pigs are very intelligent, but honestly, is it my fault that we eat them? Nope. Attack someone else.