Pet Keeping Quotes

“There is a tendency to oversimplify the issue of spay/neuter and to promote the essential benefits without recognizing that our animals do suffer some harm, even if it is only the harm of deprivation—the harm of having their sexual and reproductive experiences stolen from them. It is possible to take this argument to the extreme and assert that we should never interfere with something as basic as sexuality and reproduction. Good stewards would allow their animals to exist in a “natural” state. The problem here is that our companion animals have no “natural” state; as domesticates, they are artifacts of human manipulation, and human control over the processes of reproduction is at the heart of domestication. As Karla Armbruster notes in her essay “Into the Wild,” we cannot simply hand control for reproduction back to our companion animals; this would be an abrogation of our responsibility to them. But we owe it to them to acknowledge their losses.”
― Jessica Pierce, Run, Spot, Run: The Ethics of Keeping Pets

“I know that market value is a repulsive accounting of somebody’s worth, and many of us would be unable to put a monetary value on the worth of our animal companions, but the pet industry is willing and able. And animals are cheap. Lee Edwards Benning’s 1976 book The Pet Profiteers called out the industry, and consumers, for what could only be viewed as irresponsible buying habits. We are impetuous and unknowledgeable and spend more time choosing a pair of shoes than a pet. The reason for this may be quite straightforward: we can afford to be impetuous because animals are cheap. We choose our shoes more carefully because they are considerably more expensive.”
― Jessica Pierce, Run, Spot, Run: The Ethics of Keeping Pets

“Massive round-ups of strays have been replaced by daily intake and elimination, the large crate full of dead dogs replaced by a steady trickle of bodies. Euthanasia has become assembly-line work, performed by an army of euthanasia technicians and animal control officers. The mass killing of animals is no longer a public spectacle as it was that day in 1877 along the banks of the East River. It is all but invisible to pet owners, who therefore don’t have to feel discomfort or moral outrage. The slow bleed of our shelter system is one of the saddest aspects of our pet obsession.”
― Jessica Pierce, Run, Spot, Run: The Ethics of Keeping Pets