FETCHER.

Well I'm from a family of farmers and I certainly have never seen Cows as pets.

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Cadrian

Maybe you just didn't get to close to them... I had a Pig named Junior one time... We killed him broke my heart. Id rather killed a Dog I didn't know over that Pig. I tried to talk my dad out of killing it, but it didn't work, he put to much money into it I think. I refused to eat him but he gave him to me anyway telling it wasn't junior till after I ate him.



My Dad always made it a point to keep me from bonding with the animals he knew we had to slaughter. He told me naming something gives it a Soul.

VEGANGELICA

Hey keyleigh!

First, the short answer to your question about your biology teacher: she was wrong. Well-planned vegan diets, which include vitamin B-12, are healthful.

The issue of horse hair for violin bows relates to the larger issue of whether people are allowed to slaughter horses. This has recently been hotly debated here in the U.S. Many people, including myself, feel horses deserve a better end than being slaughtered for flesh and hair after having served humans throughout their lives.

I do not usually try to prevent carnivores from killing other animals...unless the prey is a pet or a human child! :-) I do wish nature were different, though. It may seem fine if you are the cat, but pretty horrible if you are the mouse. I can't forget the mouse, even as I am glad that the cat is alive. I do not want to kill an animal to feed a carnivore, including a cat.

Urban. Hello. Yes, I agree with you that it is probably healthier for a carnivorous pet to eat fresh flesh than any kind of canned food, whether it is vegetarian canned food or is the flesh of rendered, slaughtered animals too ill or spoiled to make it into the human food chain.

Considering vegetarian pet food for a cat isn’t something I would do to try to prove a point, but instead to try to reduce my involvement in the hurting of others. If my pet cat could be well-nourished by and enjoy eating vegetarian cat food, I see only positives from that situation. Except for the slaughter-house owners and shareholders.

I actually would have no problem with humans being used as pet food! As long as they agreed to this outcome in advance. Better than being saturated with toxic embalming fluids and buried in plastic caskets.

People in the U.S. can buy dog and cat meat, too, #9, and apparently do. Google “Puppymeat.” Why and how we separate animals (including people) into classes of killable and/or edible is a basic question that interests me, too.

Kayleigh, your feelings for a pet animal sound like the feelings I have every time I see a pig or a cow who will be slaughtered. I see them enjoying themselves and know people will end these animals' lives not for need, but for desire.

Should whether we kill an animal or not be determined primarily by how strong people's feelings are for that animal? Or should we use other criteria, too? And let’s say you felt for a wide variety of animals the same way you feel for dogs. How might this change your eating habits? What would you do, surrounded by a world where people felt nothing for dogs, cats, pet birds, piglets, or any animal you cared for? Would you continue to eat them, or would you find another way?

You are very right, mr dave, that children growing up on farms...even farmers...may view cows as a “pet” animals, which I’d say are animals you want to care for for their own sake, not just primarily to benefit people. Just like Cadrian said above when describing the pig he raised and named Junior.

I agree that altruism usually does feel good, and so is self-serving in this respect. The emotional payback I get from being vegan is that I feel I am living more consistently in line with a feeling I’ve had since I was little: I want to be kind to animals. Also, my not eating animals reduces slightly the number of animals raised as livestock, due to supply and demand.

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Neapolitan

I think one of Chuck Berry's song was named after his pet cow, I think it's Maybellene.

I saw countless cows on farms travelling on the turn pike, as a kid, whenever we seen laying down in the grass my mom would always say "it's going to rain" even til this day I don't know how cows could predict the weather. Even though cows really don't make neat pet, they're kinda popular, in America they're depicted in Country/Folk art, and home decorations etc. I got myself plaid cow stickers to put on my guitar to make look folksy.

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FETCHER.

Ah I see I didn't think that the slaughtering of horses would be involved. You'd think it'd be a little tail cut or something.

Fair point, though the mouse may have feelings and such. I believe that it should just go with a pyramid of biomass, I've never considered before the little mouse's feelings. But now that I have I still feel that the best interest is for the mouse to be killed by the cat, this may be selfish or whatever. I just believe that it's better that way, regardless or the little mouses feelings, although I do feel slightly sad. I don't feel strongly at all.

To be honest, I don't care much for any other dog other than my own and dogs I'm close to. I just view a Dog as a pet not tasty, whereas cows to me, are tasty... To answer your question I'd continue to eat them as I feel it's in my best health interests to eat animals. Plus I'm only one person. And no matter how many Vegetarians or Vegans or similar people there is, there will always be a million more omnivores.

Well my aunt has sorta pet cows, you can whistle on them and pet them and stuff, they lick you too, which is sorta weird until you get used to it, as much as I adore these cows, I still don't feel that every cow should be a pet, I mean I don't think every cow should be killed for meat. Nor do I hold much against the fact other country's eat Cat, but it would unsettle me to eat a Cat or any other domestic kind of animal.

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MAStudent

true

If anyone saw "7 Years in Tibet" with Bradd Pitt- not that great of a movie, but an interesting topic in it.

The monks are trying to build a temple, and it takes them sssooooooo long because they don't want to kill any worms in the dirt they are digging up to establish the temple foundation. Completely impractical.

NumberNineDream

Well highway traffic is pretty impractical, but I won't suggest destroying the surrounding cars. But you know, that's just me.

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Erika!

I just choose not to eat meat, but that's by choice.

Guybrush

Is there a way of you choosing which is not by choice?

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Something Completely Different

VEGANGELICA

Kayleigh, it sounds like for you the personal relationship you have with a particular animal is what impacts strongly whether you view that animal as someone you want to eat.

I also don't have strong feelings for animals I don't know personally. Similarly, it is easier for me to have stronger feelings for people I know than for people far away with whom I never interact. Except Scottish people. All Scottish people are adorable.

However, knowing that *if* I knew livestock animals better, then I would care for them and want them to live a long and happy life, causes me to wish for them to be treated as well as an animal I consider a friend. When I think of all the animals whom I don't know personally, I feel it is not *their* fault that I don't know them, and so I don't want them suffering on my account. Each animal is an individual; whether I know her or not does not change the importance of her life to herself.

Yes, MAStudent, there is no way to live without killing someone. Every time we build a home, for example, we destroy the nests of field mice (and certainly kill some, too). Whether something is practical or not depends on the person's value system.

The issue of practicality is interesting, because in many ways animal agriculture is *completely* impractical (and unsustainable): people put a whole lot of effort (and time and money) into setting up systems/industries to raise, transport, slaughter, refrigerate, and process livestock animals.

Vegetarianism, in most instances, is much more practical and efficient than animal-eating: you reduce land required for agriculture, you eliminate the massive undertaking of raising billions of confined aniamls, you reduce fresh water consumption, you reduce petroleum use.

Only if land is non-arable (such as grasslands) do I see an "efficiency" argument for raising livestock...but even so, one could raise some cows to take their milk, and raise some chickens for their eggs, and not *kill* the animals but let them live out their days. This seems fair to me, given that people *are* taking something from them. Stealing from someone and then killing her at a young age to me has always seemed doubly cruel. I actually wouldn't be opposed to eating some eggs and drinking some milk from livestock animals if I knew they would be allowed to live out their lifespans in good care.

Vegetarianism is not only practical from an efficiency standpoint, but also good for humanity: you don't support the creation of numerous diseases that originate with animal agriculture, like the swine flu virus and many more. You don't support the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a problem in countries like the U.S. where cramped livestock are fed continual low doses of antibiotics. You don't support the increased risk of heart disease and certain cancers associated with animal-product consumption (especially red meats).

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