Anxiety said:

When people can't argue the point they usually go after the person making it.

Horsefeathers said:

i'm slowly working toward it, but yeah - i love cheese and omelettes and milky cheesey eggy things, so it's gonna be a rough transition. fortunately, i like vegan cooking a lot, so half the battle is won right there.

meanwhile, i am to veganism as those people who say "i don't eat meat...well, except for some fish and chicken" are to vegetarianism. i'm kind of a vegan tourist, i guess.

Horsefeathers said:

Again, that fact was never ever in question. What I'm saying is that if one is committed to vegetarianism or veganism, isn't the "ethical" thing to do is not own pets that eat meat?

I mean, if one avoids meat, even meat from farms that aren't factory based naziesch camps that churn out flesh from abused animals, wouldn't he/she also want to avoid doing so in all aspects of their life?

It seems most people are able to rationalize this by saying the love and care for their pets and don't want to subject them to cruelty. Well, why not just choose not to own meat eating pets at all? When pet owning vegans/vegetarians extol the virtues of of thier lifestyles it's not hard to roll my eyes and think "bitch please."





every-to-ever edit
[Edited 8/29/07 5:25am]

Imago said:

it's kind of a "chicken or the egg" situation, really, isn't it?

i mean, on the one hand, you have your point about eating meat-eating pets, which is compelling if not significantly flawed;

on the other hand, you have a situation in which we have tons of domesticated animals that we've conditioned to be dependant on us, yet at the same time there's nothing we can do to alter their body chemistry or some of their more ingrained natural instincts.

it would be just as unethical to suddenly neglect pets because they won't go vegetarian as it would be to keep meat-based foods in the household for that same pet. which is the worse treatment of animals?

i have a cat who was going to go to an animal shelter if i didn't take him. he had also been declawed by his former owner. i felt compelled to give him a good home, and he's been a great little companion. i make sure i get him the highest quality food i can afford - either science diet or the schmancy whole foods brands - but i learned that if i try to feed him stuff that's *too* fancy, with too many exotic ingredients and veggies in the formula - he just plain won't eat it.

i don't feed my cat beef or fish; i don't want him eating beef, and i've been told at the vet that fish is hard on my cat's stomach. so i get him stuff that's turkey or chicken based, and i make sure it's high-quality food. i'm not thrilled about having to get meat-based food for my pet, but what's the option? sending an old, tubby, declawed cat into the wild to fend for himself? that's ethical?

my cat likes eating lettuce.

jami0mckay said:

that is unusual!

mine would eat cardboard if I covered it in yogurt first

ZombieKitten said:

I think I've had those biscuits before...called yop or something

jami0mckay said:

jami0mckay said:

my cat eats toilet paper. it's like laffy taffy to him.

Anxiety said:

Anxiety said:

omg you have reminded me!!!! you know sometimes you mail order stuff and it comes with that packing stuff like little styrofoam eights?



my cat LOVED to eat those!!!

ZombieKitten said:

they use it as padding in case they get into fights

jami0mckay said:

lol
but I think they actually are made from some organic substance, like cornstarch or something, I just can't imagine it would taste anything but gluey

ZombieKitten said:

yeh or like the prawn crackers they serve at the golden lion

jami0mckay said:

would your cat eat those? I have a whole bag of them, and I don't have a cat any more

ZombieKitten said:

well he won't eat kp skips, maybe he's on a diet?

jami0mckay said:

or he has flu and lost his sense of smell

ZombieKitten said:

thats why he was making lemsip this morning !

jami0mckay said:

Anxiety said:

Girl, no it's not.


As far as sending your tubby, declawed, cat into the wild being ethical or not, this is typical of vegan/vegitarian rationalizing


Owning meat eating pets still contributes the consumption of meat whether it goes into your mouth or your pets. Any way of rationalizing owning them and still calling oneself a vegan/vegitarian seems at the least to me, very funny.

I understand your point about your tubby, declawed, cat and what would be best for his life, but when he passes, are you going to go out and find another chubby cat to declaw and feed meat?

sorry , but an irrelevant arguement imo

cats need meat , humans don't

Dewrede said:

What happenned today? Does everyone suddenly think they're a genius for stating the obvious?

And humans do eat meat normally.



ok, let's say we own a snake, who eat meat naturally.
But it's very difficult to feed them anything but Live meat.



So is it thus ethical for a vegan/vegitarian to own a snake, and feed it mice (or rabbits for larger ones) ?



Just cause they cat food comes in a nice freindly package doesn't mean, something hasn't been slaughtered for that, and a lifestyle chosing to own meat eating pets, to me, is a meat consuming one no matter what layers of abstraction you throw on top of it.

phineas said:

interesting...unnecessary....but interesting that you couldn't see the point I was making and thought I was just taking a blow at River....


lawd

Imago said:

you need to understand, i don't actually eat the cat food myself and regurgitate it into my kitty's mouth. grady eats it on his own.

Anxiety said:

Oh you could feed it through a tube to him for all I care--it's still not a vegan/vegetarian lifestyle if one owns a meat eating pet.

Imago said:

to be honest, i wouldn't own a snake for precisely that reason. and i understand the point you're making about cat food or dog food being the same thing, only pre-packaged and "de-gored" for our consumption.

dan, i get it, okay?

but i also get that you're using this as an argument to topple what you're perceiving as the "moral airtightness" of a vegetarian lifestyle, and girlfriend, i'm just not buyin' it.

i'm not going to compromise my pet's health because of a decision i have the capacity to make for my own diet and way of living. THAT is cruelty. i made a choice to take a cat into my home because i knew him from his previous owner and couldn't bear to think of him in a pound or a shelter. i took on the reality that i'd have to feed him meat-based pet food, because that's what he needs in order to survive. i'm not thrilled by that fact, but i use that apprehension to make sure i'm getting him the best quality food i can afford, made by companies with the least horror stories possible.

everyone makes their own decisions as to what they can "allow" ethically and what is simply unacceptable to them. like that bloom county cartoon illustrated years ago, if we attempted to live a 100% ethical/cruelty-free lifestyle, we'd be like milo standing on the edge of a rock on one toe, swearing off all food forever and praying for the departed souls of the microbes i'm crushing with my toe on the rock.

at some point, yes, survivalism DOES enter the picture and we have to choose some sacrifices. that does not excuse us from making the best decisions we possibly can, as we are able. you're setting up absolutes with your argument, and those absolutes may be more necessary for your internal struggle than it is for other people.

Anxiety said:

And I get it that you aren't going to subject your cat to soy products.
It's still not overall, a vegan or vegitarian lifestyle if you factor that in.


That's not to say that decreasing your meat eating footprint isn't a great thing, but as far as I see, why not just stop owning meat eating pets once this one passes away?

Ultimately, it is about personal tolerances/threasholds of what one is willing to sacrafice. Owning pets MUST play into that if we're to be completely honest with ourselves.

Imago said:

and i'm not completely sure if i WILL have another pet after grady goes to kitty heaven.

i dunno, let me ask you this - my mother is in poor health, and one possibility is that i may have to one day bring her into my home and care for her. my mother is not a vegetarian. if she is incapable of preparing her own food (which is a real possibility at this point), should i deny her meat because of a decision i made for myself? i know her opinions are different than mine, but i'd have the decision-making ability to force a vegetarian diet on her, even if she protests it.

i know someone who is a vegetarian who worked at a group home facility, and he had to help prepare meals and those meals involved preparing meat. should he have quit?

i'm sure if you have the time, we can come up with about 1,000,000 more scenarios. wanna?

Anxiety said:

No I don't want to go into a million scnerios. And taking care of a sick loved one is completely different than chosing to own a pet that must eat meat. We could muddy the water of the topic and say does breathing in air which contains microbes that your body is designed to kill denote an unethical bioligical response if we want to


My point always gets folks defensive, but it's a valid point--You don't live a vegan/vegitarian lifestyle if you own pets that eat meat, and you CHOSEN to do it.