The debate about companion animals 'owned' (never owned) by vegans has been raging for decades and mostly goes round and round in circles, but there are some facts that are indisputable:
You can't make cats vegan. Cats either like or don't like the vegan food you may give them (some of the vegan products available work for some cats, but clearly not for all), and some will eat a lot of it, but if they spend any time outside, they will predate on the local wildlife. Obviously.
Given the state of the world, there will always be animals in need of rescuing (and yes, ideally there'd be fewer cats and puppies, and fewer unscrupulous breeders), so one can't say that vegans shouldn't do that. This creates the instant moral dilemma of vegans having to buy animal products-based animal food, but short of putting down all the cats, dogs, or snakes (to take Caz' example), it's a dilemma that can't be solved. We don't have nearly enough rewilded land to put domesticated animal species in for them to become wild again (which at any rate wouldn't work out too well for some of them), much though that would quite probably bring the usual problems of introduced species with it.
Even vegans like domesticated companion animals, and nothing is going to change that, but getting herbivores isn't a solution, either, as you just end up imprisoning them in very small spaces (there may be exceptions), whereas the larger carnivores (not snakes) are animals you can keep close to you while giving them some space to live in, i.e. cats going out independently or dogs being walked.
Nature wouldn't function without carnivores, but humans are able to understand that they shouldn't be carnivores, or indeed anywhere near the 'top of the food chain', so the mere fact that you need to take over some kind of moral agency on behalf of the carnivores/omnivores you live with doesn't mean that you fatally compromise your veganism. Absolutely the vast bulk of animal abuse is for products that humans consume, not for carnivorous or other omnivorous animals.
Sure, ideally we'd have far less animal husbandry, but we won't get to the point at which this might only extend to a bit of production of meat for cats and the like before very long, and at any rate I really don't think it's the primary thing we need to reduce. It's one of those issues that I think takes the focus away from weaning humans off animal products, and, as I'm sure quite a few on here have experienced, is one of those things that you tend to get lobbed at you in discussion in order to lead your veganism ad absurdum (which it doesn't).
The debate about companion animals 'owned' (never owned) by vegans has been raging for decades and mostly goes round and round in circles, but there are some facts that are indisputable:
You can't make cats vegan. Cats either like or don't like the vegan food you may give them (some of the vegan products available work for some cats, but clearly not for all), and some will eat a lot of it, but if they spend any time outside, they will predate on the local wildlife. Obviously.
Given the state of the world, there will always be animals in need of rescuing (and yes, ideally there'd be fewer cats and puppies, and fewer unscrupulous breeders), so one can't say that vegans shouldn't do that. This creates the instant moral dilemma of vegans having to buy animal products-based animal food, but short of putting down all the cats, dogs, or snakes (to take Caz' example), it's a dilemma that can't be solved. We don't have nearly enough rewilded land to put domesticated animal species in for them to become wild again (which at any rate wouldn't work out too well for some of them), much though that would quite probably bring the usual problems of introduced species with it.
Even vegans like domesticated companion animals, and nothing is going to change that, but getting herbivores isn't a solution, either, as you just end up imprisoning them in very small spaces (there may be exceptions), whereas the larger carnivores (not snakes) are animals you can keep close to you while giving them some space to live in, i.e. cats going out independently or dogs being walked.
Nature wouldn't function without carnivores, but humans are able to understand that they shouldn't be carnivores, or indeed anywhere near the 'top of the food chain', so the mere fact that you need to take over some kind of moral agency on behalf of the carnivores/omnivores you live with doesn't mean that you fatally compromise your veganism. Absolutely the vast bulk of animal abuse is for products that humans consume, not for carnivorous or other omnivorous animals.
Sure, ideally we'd have far less animal husbandry, but we won't get to the point at which this might only extend to a bit of production of meat for cats and the like before very long, and at any rate I really don't think it's the primary thing we need to reduce. It's one of those issues that I think takes the focus away from weaning humans off animal products, and, as I'm sure quite a few on here have experienced, is one of those things that you tend to get lobbed at you in discussion in order to lead your veganism ad absurdum (which it doesn't).