"Rat & Swan" > wrote in message
...
>
>
> Rubystars wrote:
> > "Rat & Swan" > wrote in message
> > <snip>
>
> >> And will your grandson be neutered and kept indoors?
>
> > Rat I wasn't going to say anything up until you said this. Are you
opposed
> > to neutering cats and keeping them indoors?
>
> While they are companion animals? No. I strongly recommend it.
>
> > Those are two things which are
> > strongly in the interest of cats!
>
> I agree -- the interest of cats kept as pets. They are not in the
> interest of cats who are free.
>
> The poster claimed her cats were no more controlled than her
> children. I doubt this very much, if for no other reason than, in
> most cases, human children grow up, leave home, and develop lives
> of their own. The basic wrong, in the AR concept, in keeping

This is exactly the problem. Cat, dogs, domestic animals, have the
intelligence of a small child. So do wild animals. They don't know to look
both ways before crossing the street until they are hit by a car - and by
that time, it's too late for most of them, even if they are intelligent
enough to learn. Are you also advocating that we give up cars, tractors,
and other vehicles, or lower the speed limit to about 10 miles an hour so
ignorant animals have time to get out of the way?

> (and breeding or neutering ) cats and other pets is that we have
> made them permanent dependents -- whether as slaves or food or
> pseudo-"children". Obviously, the well-cared-for (not pampered )
> pet, or even better, companion animal, will have a much better life
> and welfare than a battery-cage hen, a calf in a veal crate, or
> a fighting dog. That is good for that pet. But he/she has a better
> life _at the whim of his/her owner_. The owner could as easily have

Now this part I agree with. Ask any farmer what happens when an owner
decides he or she doesn't want a pet anymore. Many of them have had to
shoot those feral dogs you talked about in our converstation because they
were killing livestock and would not hesitate to go after small children
either. Farmers often find dogs, cats, pet rabbits, etc., who have been
dumped near their farmhouses on the (false) theory that the farmer has the
time and money to find them and will take care of them. I just do not think
your solution is one.

> abused or neglected him/her -- any episode of _Animal Precinct_ or
> _Animal Cops_ ( or a stint in rescue ) will show how bad it can get.
>
> What ARAs believe is that the basic master/pet relationship is
> morally wrong. The life of the animal should not belong to the
> master -- even the kind master. The animal should own his own life.

Animals do no own their lives in the wild, and if you think they do, you
need to watch some nature shows about predators.

> That does not mean the human cannot have a relationship with the
> animal -- something like Jane Goodall's friendship with her
> chimpanzees or the relationships in _Never Cry Wolf_. Those people
> didn't just observe at a distance; they touched and interacted with
> the animals -- but they did not control them. Humans who go to places
> (like the Galapagos Islands when they were first discovered) where
> the animals have not had contact with humans before, are often amazed
> that the animals do not fear them and run from them. Fear of humans
> is a learned behavior in wild animals. Not that we will live in a
> Disney world or a Dr. Doolittle world. But we can have a much more
> friend-like relationship with animals who are neither our prey nor
> our possessions.

What you choose to ignore is that 1: the human animal is by nature a
predator itself. and 2: there are plenty of other predators in the world
who would not hesitate to eat us as well as their other prey.

In the animal world, you're predator, or you're prey. Everything that
lives, eats something, and some animals just naturally eat other animals.
It's the way of the world.

>