Animal rights is WRONG

I am glad you posted this. This is something that I have been saying for years, but no one ever believed me or thought I was a fool.

I don't think keeping pets should be abolished but I also think that this article is somewhat biased...for example

I disagree with the whole premise of this statement. I don't think animals are property, they are living things. I don't think keeping animals is the same as animal ownership. We don't own our children but we still "keep them" in a sense- we make sure they are safe, provide for them,and they certainly have rights although they are limited. Animals are the same way IMO.

ETA: Okay so what I said was pretty extreme here..This is how I feel for my pets but farm animals are different... but I think even if you keep farm animals just for slaughter you have responsibilities towards them..such as meeting a standard quality of life they should have, not injecting hormones into them and keeping them in cells where they can't even turn! which does happen btw.

Call me radical if you wish but if I could change the world, I'd do away with large scale farms that keep animals. They are cruel and engage in animal cruelty. It is different than keeping a horse to help you move from point A to point B as it was in the past or milking a cow for most of its life and feeding it,and then when it gets old or sick slaughter it for the meat. This is called animals and humans coexisting ...What we have now is humans exploiting animals.
And hunting with a gun, I definitely don't believe in killing as a sport.

So there are things I agree on with PETA and the humane society..that doesn't mean that I think animals shouldn't be kept as pets or used by humans...
And of course, even though I personally don't agree with hunting that doesn't mean I think it should be banned. To think that is definitely radical...
And it's pretty radical to say that animals shouldn't be kept just for slaughter...So I do see how these groups are radical. But we can at least learn something from them...there is a lot of injustice in how animals are kept that can be fixed and looking at the most radical groups can give a nice contrast so it isn't such a bad idea

My pets ARE my property and here is why. I have explained this many times. In eyes of the law (in the USA) animals as pets must always be considered property. In the USA, we have a "right" to property ownership. If animals are not considered property, the government can easily tell you that you can not own a pet, since it would not be considered a right. That is why the AR wants to change this classification. The AR wants to abolish all pet ownership and what better way to do this, is to get the government to ban your right to do so. Now, does this mean I treat my animals badly because I feel they are my property, heck no. There is nothing that I devote more if my life and time to, is my cats in my care. But I will not stand by and let anyone or any special interest group, take away my right to live with my animals. Support your LOCAL shelters, but do not send your hard earned money to these groups who will do nothing to help animals. Just to refresh your memories. PETA, HSUS, API and most if these big AR groups do NOT run any shelter. And over 90% of all animals PETA takes in they kill. So much for "animal rights". I guess PETA feels these animals have a right to die, instead of the possibility of going to a loving home. If These AR groups cared so much, how come they do not offer any low cost spay/neuter programs? They have huge sums of money to do so, but they would rather waste it paying to get legislation passed.

Well put UtOpia.

Thanks It's so nice to know that I'm not alone on this like I thought I'd be..


Okay...but if animals are our property than how can we take the necessary measures to protect them from cruel people like they deserve to be protected??? To extend what I said about children, if they were declared our property then imagine what some parents could do to their children. I'm sure some of them will be in cages...how can you ensure that animals are not violated or done wrong by if you don't give them any rights? I just feel like calling animals our property gives too much power to people over their animals...
And I see what you are saying, but nowhere is it written that you have the right to go to college, the right to have a job, etc...Not every single right is enumerated into law. So unless a law is passed AGAINST keeping pets, even if they are not legally property I don't see how they are to be banned.

Not at all, the old saying that there is nothing in the middle of the road besides yellow lines and dead armadillos should be amended to include me. Here is what I posted in response to a question by an extreme animal rights group on another forum:

Animals used for food should be bred, kept, raised and slaughtered in humane conditions, while alive their lives should not have any more unpleasantness than any life has.

Animal testing should be reserved for when it is effective, is the only way, and only for products that are essential to life and health. If someone chooses to wear cosmetics or eat junk food, let them take their own chances.

Food and Lab animals should be kept under the best possible conditions.

These animals sacrifice their lives for us, we owe it to them to make those lives as comfortable as is possible.
Maybe for this thread I should add an opinion on pet or companion animals.

Animals kept as pets should be fed at least as high a quality of food as their owners and recieve at least basic vet care. Pet owners should be expected to consider the animals need for exercise or whatever the species requires, and at the very least they should never have to fear their owners.

While I may have the heart of a vegetarian I have the dietary requirements of an omnivore and do eat meat. As little as is left over for human food after feeding my critters I would still be happy to pay extra for cruelty free meat if it were availiable.

The government can enact and enforce laws on how you take care of your property. Just for instance, if you are a home owner, your local goverment does have laws in place that dictate how that property should be taken care of, but since property ownership is a right, they can not tell you you can not own that home. Laws can be written that ensure proper humane treatment of animals, even though they may be considered property. The laws do not say you can not own or keep animals, but if you do, they have to have the proper care. As for laws banning pet ownership, this is already happening. It has started with exotics and is slowly but steadily expanding to domestic animals as well. How do they do this if pets are considered property? They label an animal as vicious or dangerous and there fore, to protect people from some false harm, they ban the animal. Pit bull owners know this and other dogs are falling under the same law. Even some domestic cat breeds are being banned. Bengals and Savannahs for instance, because they have distant "wild or dangerous" blood in them.
So true!!

There are several ways that PETA, HSUS, etc. are looking to eliminate companion animals, not just by redefining pet ownership. Check out the Spay/Neuter legislation that it out there right now. They are seeking to make it absolutely mandatory under the law to spay/neuter, including show cats/dogs and those belonging to reputable and responsible breeders.

What the people fighting for this legislation clearly don't realize is that pet overpopulation is NOT because of RESPONSIBLE pet owners. RESPONSIBLE pet owners are also the ones providing veterinary care, and usually dog licenses and are not contributors to the soaring pet population.

I agree with this.
This are bad groups.
The HSUS even causes trouble at cat shows.
I can not stand them or PETA.

Originally Posted by whiteforest
There are several ways that PETA, HSUS, etc. are looking to eliminate companion animals, not just by redefining pet ownership. Check out the Spay/Neuter legislation that it out there right now. They are seeking to make it absolutely mandatory under the law to spay/neuter, including show cats/dogs and those belonging to reputable and responsible breeders.



What the people fighting for this legislation clearly don't realize is that pet overpopulation is NOT because of RESPONSIBLE pet owners. RESPONSIBLE pet owners are also the ones providing veterinary care, and usually dog licenses and are not contributors to the soaring pet population.

I think many people see animal welfare and animal rights as synonymous and these groups use this to gain support. Any responsible animal lover who has pets is fine with laws about the care of companion animals that are enforced. That is different from animal rights that puts animals on the same level as humans as far as rights and therefore cannot be 'owned'.

There's a series of books where the word for horses in this one culture means "ever-younger-siblings." That's kind of how I see my cats. Not less valuable than a human (at least if you average in the humans that act like they're less than animals), but being taken care of, therefore under the authority of their caretaker. Guardianship is a better concept to apply to pet-type animals than ownership, I think...they're not exactly like children, because they don't grow up, but it's close enough. The law is catching up to this with anti-cruelty legislation; if they were really just property and nothing else in the eyes of the law, it would be legal to do anything to them.
This is what I've been saying for a while too...my cats don't get superpremium food, as much as I'd like to be able to give it to them, but they eat as well as or better than me (as much moderate-quality kibble as they want and canned food every day, routinely; when I cook chicken for me I cut off a nugget-sized chunk for each of them when it's almost ready for humans; at the worse end of things, there've been times right before paydays when the kibble's run out and I've scraped together change to buy cans because that's what change will buy, so that they won't miss any meals, and let me tell you, sliced beef in gravy smells good when I'm having Plain Rice Again). They get vet care to the same standard as I get to see a doctor--not on a regular schedule, but as needed for anything specific, with home preventive care and chicken soup to reduce the need for the professionals.

However, they are sometimes scared of humans because they were allowed to run feral as little kittens, so never fearing their owners might be a stretch. We're working on this: Panther is friendly with people she's comfortable with; Squirrel allows me to provide food for her but leaves if I approach her (I don't do this intentionally but sometimes she's next to something I need). The Feliway is helping Squirrel a bit. I've never given them a reason to be afraid of me, though they might disagree since I've taken them for shots.
I think the closest thing to a housecat in the wild would be something like a small bobcat. A bobcat could do a lot worse than to have all its meals provided and a comfortable home to keep the rain and snow off.

It's completely nutty to say that it's wrong to basically trade with an animal, giving it the essentials of life in exchange for its presence. Heck, I'd take a deal like that. If I hadn't made that choice for my cats they would have, minimally, had a jillion kittens, grandkittens, etc. by now, and possibly gotten picked off by a coyote, caught one of the diseases that was going around the outdoor cats at the farm I took them from, or gotten so worn down by the ringworm they had that they just couldn't keep going.

Also, if they think my cats are "pitiful sorry excuses" for wild animals, I'll get Squirrel and Panther into a carrier and they can stick a hand in. My cats got themselves banned from a low-cost vaccination clinic associated with a shelter where we used to live, for going psycho on a vet tech that tried that.

My apologies for any typos or random characters I missed; Panther "helped" with this post.

I have a cat who is still scared of all humans, and only occasionally wants me to pet her. But I have never given her reason to fear me. Ever since medicating one dog for a week she shys away if I reach for her head, but again, that's a misconception on her part, not the result of mal treatment.

Yup. There have been a few meals I've been jealous of their food! Mine don't eat the best, but they aren't on store brand either, and eat before I do.

If only those who wee rich could adopt a pet the shelters would be bursting, but the pets should be the first priority, regardless of a households income level.

The word they use is "artificial species," and it applies to all domesticated animals, from lab mice to working elephants. This is why they have no compuctions about killing seized dogs and cats, or killing cats they obtain from shelters as "rescue" organizations.

I have to say I would be in favor of ALMOST anything that would get more pet owners to spay and nueter. True that responsible pet owners are not creating colonys of semi feral cats to starve and fallprey to disease, but sadly we are in the minority.
Driving home after an evening shift there is a small creek on my street, and it's low banks house countless cats. It's almost eerie to see all the glowing eyes in my headlights.
I have taken in and tamed and altered so many, but haven't even made a dent. Pretty depressing.
I just don't see where the extremist groups, well meaning as they may have started out, are providing an acceptable alternative. I wish someone could though.

I throw away the begging letters I get from HSUS. I don't like their shock tactics, for one thing. I know the abuse is rampant, I don't need it shoved in my face. All that does is make me even more against giving them any money.

I am not cut out for rescue or foster work, but when I have a little extra money, I like to give it personally. I mean, to someone I know, who does the kind of work I don't have the stomach for. Because those people are my heros.


This is a terrific thread. I really like this forum. It seems people can have differing view points without a lot of name calling and flaming. That says a lot about a board in general, you know?

Do you really think that will be the answer to overpopulation?? It will cost a lot of money (in law enforcement officers, take up time in courts, etc.) to enforce that irresponsible owners and puppy mills spay and neuter their cats and dogs and I can assure you tax payers aren't going to go for that. So, the responsible owners and breeders who are licensing and vetting their pets are going to be the ones who suffer under mandatory spay-neuter laws. Meanwhile, the idiot owners who are letting their animals breed free and contributing to the problem will continue to do so.

Parents can make pretty much all those decisions for their kids (the breeding thing doesn't really apply...I hope...) so I don't see how being referred to as a cat guardian instead of a cat owner would change my right to take care of my cats as I see fit as long as it doesn't cause harm.

But the responsible owners are the ones who already DO spay and neuter so they won't even be affected by the laws.
As far as breeders, I think there should be a license to be a breeder...

What counts as a breeder, though? If someone takes in a pregnant stray and sells the kittens to cover expenses, is that a breeder? What about accidental breeding because of not getting females spayed soon enough (suppose they go to a vet that doesn't believe in pediatric spay), is that person a breeder? If someone feeds a feral colony and doesn't manage to TNR every cat, but they catch and rehome some of the kittens, does that make them a breeder?

None of those sound like breeder behavior to me, and banning them would create a huge burden on normal pet care (as well as probably being impossible to enforce), but defining them as non-breeder situations would create enough loopholes for unethical types.

The closest thing to a domestic cat is other subspecies of felis silvestris, which the house cat (f. silvestris catus) is actually sometimes considered a subspecies of.
Bobcats are of the lynx genus, which is completely different.


I don't get everyone going on about being a "guardian". It must be some empty feel good word like so many others that people attach sentimental meaning to. An animal is an animal, not a child. Respect them for being the animals they are. Would anyone want some government agency being able to come in and look at your home and declare your care unfit because you're not providing the most expensive food? Because you didn't buy some $300+ cat tree? Because some of you don't follow the one litter box for every cat + 1 rule? Or, and this one actually exists in some areas thanks to AR, because you have more than the predetermined set limit of two or three cats? (this one is particular is against breeders)

My cats are my cats, plain and simple. Just like my reptiles are mine. They are my property. If I wished to transfer said property to someone else, for whatever reason (lots of people here rehome cats, before anyone tries to twist this into meaning something else), that's my prerogative and no one else's.
Things should be kept as they are, what basic laws that protect animals from cruelty and neglect should be enforced whenever possible, and no more stupid AR pushed bills are needed. The funding wasting on these bills would be better spent elsewhere.

Cat and dog owners rarely see a lot of these bills. But as a reptile owner I see that there are always some being pushed to take away peoples rights to keep their reptile pets. Thankfully, a recent crazy one pushed by HSUS didn't go through with it's original wording. Fun little bit of info, during a conference to work on HR2811 HSUS provided little facts or science and instead argued using emotional rhetoric, USARK presented the facts and by doing this got support to amend the bill so that it didn't ban all pythons.
Goofy emotional rhetoric tends to be a problem which clouds most peoples judgment on many things, unfortunately.

Currently the exotic and reptile groups are out there fighting for your rights to your pets, and it would be nice if the dog and cat owners realized this threat and added support and funds to the effort.

Thankfully the majority of the people on here do realize that AR groups are harmful. But I bet most don't know current bills they're pushing ATM. And if anyone did, would you write your congressman not to limit or ban ownership of exotics, reptiles, birds, or rodents? or would it fall under the radar as not being important because it didn't involve house cats?

Yes I think the word owner is too harsh and implies that animals are objects that can be owned..
that's why I don't like it. I would prefer guardian...

No I don't think that is the answer, I ended my post with that sentiment.

I don't know what the answer is myself. When I pass four or five houses in just a couple miles that have dogs chained to a tree out front and a sign saying Pit Bull Puppies For Sale, or see the neighbors young cat swelling with her second litter I wonder if it wouldn't help. Then I think about the inefficiancy that is the hallmark of any government undertaking.
I'm afraid that it would just lead to animals being confiscated and euthanized, even though it would be cheaper and more humane to provide low cost sterilization.

Do you honestly think Jake cares what you call yourself as long as he's healthy, happy, and his meals are on time?

What one calls themselves doesn't need to change, nor the rights along with it. What needs to change is the general publics views and attitudes towards their animals. And the fact that we're responsible for them.

It's not alright to let them have one litter first because you believe that not to allow them this would somehow be impinging upon their rights (lots of people believe this one...) - they're animals not humans. What is a cat going to do? Will their offspring their litter box?
Or what about the guys who have male animals and won't neuter them because they wouldn't want to be "neutered"? Over in other countries it's believed to be cruel not to let your cat roam outside, you can't adopt if you want to keep them inside and tell the shelters this. People that share all of their food with their pets, even giving their dogs chocolate, because it would be cruel not to share.
At what point do people start attributing the same "rights" that people have to animals does it become harmful?