I don't quite get the concept of "owning" animals as pets. Isn't it unethical to own an animal simply for personal pleasure and entertainment? We are horrified by owning one another (slavery) yet we own other animals. We are animals, too. What reasons do you own pets?
That's more of a semantic issue than a moral one. We call our relationship with our pets "ownership" because AFAIK the laws in all countries define them as property rather than citizens. They have no (or almost no) legal rights, so in the eyes of the shit-for-brains government, which takes a digital rather than analog view of the world, they have to be property.
I don't know about your pets, but if you asked mine how they liked being "owned" by me, they would scratch their heads and respond, "Oh, you mean the Fraggle over there? He's just a really nice roommate who provides all the food. Yeah I guess we never go anywhere but it's because we love it here so much. Sometimes when he takes us out walking and there are no cops to bust us, he takes off the leashes, and we stick with him anyway. Since there's never a food shortage our primary motivation is love, and there's plenty of it right here. Sorry gotta go, he just called nap time and we're all gonna make a big pile on the bed."
Basically, the pet should be free to leave at any time; if they then choose to stay, then it's fine.
We used to have parrots and we took them outside. The only time they tried to fly away was when something startled them and that reflex center in their shoulders started flapping their wings, and they were really sorry about that.
Many people let their cats roam freely (although city ordinances are cracking down on that) and if your cat doesn't come home the only reason is that something bigger ate him.
We have carefully selected the species that we have domesticated as pets. Most of them are pack-social species who bond with a small group of pack-mates. If you treat them well they'll be perfectly delighted to stay with you.
I was raised with animals that earned their keep. We currently have 2 cats because they keep our yard free of moles and our house free of mice. They earn their keep. If we lived on a farm/ranch I could see owning a dog since it could protect/herd the other animals. I just have a hard time keeping a pet for companionship. I understand why others do it, but its not my mind-set when it comes to animals.
Why don't you consider companionship as "earning their keep"??? It's been well documented that dogs keep us healthy by relieving stress, encouraging us to play more, and providing absolutely unconditional love that's hard to get anywhere else. Of course other species perform these tasks too, but dogs have been doing it for at least twice as long and they're better at it.
Look at the earth's cesspools in which dog ownership is not common or outright forbidden: Inner cities and the backwoods of fundamentalist Islam. People in both places have lost their grip on civilization and have regressed to the tribal era.
Ah, so you support slave labour?
Do you call it "slavery" when we confine someone with an IQ of 45 to an institution? Do you think we should turn him loose to find his way in the world? Parrots, dolphins and apes may have intelligence that approaches that level, but the mammals most commonly kept as companions aren't even close. How could they possibly thrive on their own in an ecosystem that has been almost completely rebuilt to our specifications and no longer resembles the one their ancestors evolved to fit?
These species have been bred in captivity for thousands of generations, and they no longer have the temperament to rough it. You occasionally see feral populations of cats or dogs, and they're usually hanging around the fringes of civilization scavenging (and gratefully accepting handouts), not reverting to the hunting life of their ancestors.
Herbivores do okay. Since we killed off all their predators the deer have been slowly taking over America's cities, and they are evolving intelligence as the new survival trait instead of speed and a good sense of smell. They've learned to read traffic patterns and even pedestrian walk signals. But herbivores can (and to our great dismay do) eat the foliage everywhere they go. Most of our pet species are carnivores and they need to hunt, in an ecosystem that lacks prey.
Right or wrong, what's done is done and we now have species of companion animals who like being companion animals. We've certainly modified our own psychology since the Agricultural Revolution both permitted and required us to gather in larger packs. We've done the same to the other species we live with.
Of course, if you're going to condemn pet ownership then you also shouldn't eat livestock.
Indeed. Even ignoring the morality of raising them to be killed and eaten, the conditions under which they're kept nowadays are beyond barbaric. Fortunately I have enough cognitive dissonance to be able to eat a taco without thinking about the way the pigs are treated. And furthermore my home state recently passed a law requiring "factory farms" to be more humane. Nonetheless I wouldn't be surprised if in two or three generations vegetarianism becomes the norm. I'll be long gone, but just in case, I'm hanging onto the mantra, "Chocolate is a vegetable."