Should you go to prison for eating your pet?

millions upon millions of animals are tortured, mutilated, killed and devoured by humans every single year, male chickens are fed alive to the shredder by conveyor belts right after they hatch.
Many millions do not even get to live through childhood before they get their brains smashed by steel bolts, or their throats slit by mass executioners.
A global industrial killing machine that makes the corpse of Hitler rotate in his grave with envy.
But doing it to “pets” is supposed to be abhorrent and gross, while all the rest is business-as-usual?
Yeah, no.

No.

I am cool with eating pets. I see no difference between a cow or a cat. I have a fishtank. I consider them pets. But I would sure as fuck eat them if hungry enough.

However, I will concede that there is some stigma surrounding eating cats and dogs. So yeah, don’t sell the meat unless it clearly labeled as dog or cat.

There would be a lot of 4-H kids in jail. They raise their animals for sale or for the table.

Stock animals are far different than pets to us farm kids. You love your dogs, cats and birds, but the rest you keep a distance emotionally. Knowing they’ll end as meat. So I do have a problem with it actually, yes on jail time for cooking Benji.

I don’t see them as different. And keep in mind I grew up on a 80 acre farm. I loved our cows and pigs and chickens. We still shot them in the face to fill the freezer for the winter.

Here is my thing. What if when I was ten our pitbull attacked me? Actually happened. But the cows let me ride around on them. It was slow but fun. I liked the cows more than the dog. I did not consider the dog a friend. It was a Menace 2 Society. And mom let me dispatch the dog and it felt great.

So some variables are involved.

@johnpowell You have to put down a mad dog though. I rode my milk cow Bessie, too, btw.

Some cultures of the world DO eat dogs and cats. But eating “companion animals’ is particularly repugnant by North American and European standards—and if we feel its repugnant enough, then jail time is certainly justifiable.

Exceptions can be made if it was for survival in very hard times, such as a natural disaster. But it is still repugnant to most of us.

Dogs and Cats and many birds or other animals are actually quite intelligent and have a rapport with humans that other animals don’t have

I’m not sure about legality of it but anyone who thinks pet as their extended family member will be in favor of punishment for such act. I don’t know what are their thoughts when such brutalities are done with other animals which aren’t their pets as pointed out by @ragingloli.

It should be a choice.
Pets were initially kept for the tasks they could perform.
Cats kept rodent numbers down. Dogs helped with hunting, or herding, provided safety from intruders.
Animals kept strictly for companionship is a fairly recent thing.
There are people who want their pets to be companions, and treated like family. If they feel that way, fine, but people who have a more functional, less frivolous attitude about animals should not be held to the expectations of those people who put sunglasses and skirts on their animals.
Now, butchering animals which belong to someone else is another matter.

I would go by the sentience or intelligence of the animal and its relations to humans and human society rather than our feelings about them or what WE do with them.

Animals that have been domesticated by humans to live somewhat symbiotic with humans are not to be eaten. Neither are intelligent animals like dolphins. However, animals we have raised for food for thousands of years, or animals hunted and preyed on by humans, CAN be eaten, in our society

Paradoxical are birds. ANY kind of bird is edible. Although chickens have lived with humans for thousands of years, they have always been used for food. Intelligent birds such as parrots or other “pet“birds are intelligent and human-oriented though still widely wild. Other birds we simply do not eat for no reason at all, such as blue jays—though people do eat quail. These are just societal norms and mores which have very subtle but very strong ‘rules’, Kill an Eagle or whatever your state bird is and you could be in a heap of trouble even if your cat kills it and nothing happens

Y E P.

@Yellowdog My parrot is smarter than some humans though. Seriously.

Agreed—Parrots are EXTREMELY intelligent—especially the African Grey and a few other varieties. They are certainly more intelligent than dogs and cats and average humans.

Many birds are far more intelligent than many humans realize and I would certainly think eating an intelligent bird, even a mockingbird, is wrong. Though ALL birds are edible.

Chickens, quail, turkeys—even ducks and geese—not as intelligent and seem to clearly qualify as food. They are also fattier and taste better—though even THEY are beautiful and often docile animals,

When I was a child, living on a farm, the chickens were my job, and my pets. Hens which were wild, and would kill the dog if he were dumb enough to get close, would sit quietly on my lap. The wild hens were our breeders. We took their chicks and those were the ones we would eventually eat. The tame hens we kept for the eggs. My mom once killed my favorite rooster. After that I laid down the law about which ones were off limits. Those I named. The others I cared for, treated well, but I knew one day each would nestle in a pot of noodles or sizzle in a skillet.
I knew that, but they didn’t. They had happy lives, eating bugs, mating, and crapping everywhere.

Should you go to prison for making a pet of an animal that’s being raised for food? Once you’ve bestowed affection on it and given it a name, is it still food?

@Jeruba – so what is the guiding line? Giving it a name? Admiring it? Can you define a solid guideline?

It depends on what kind of animal it is.

Bestow your love and affection on a pig or chicken, and you may decide NOT to eat them. But eating them is okay as long as killing them is done in a painless and humane way. They are farm animals.

In America, we do not eat dogs. In China many people do. I would argue universally that eating dogs is unacceptable. In America, it should be illegal except for survival in a hardship or natural disaster—but even then, many would not eat their pet. It is repugnant. Eating a stray might not be,

@Yellowdog Same with horses.

but horses are delicious, and make great glue.

@ragingloli Are they delicious?!

Of course.

Interesting (had no idea you were German btw)! According to nutritional data, 100 grams of cooked horse meat contains 175 calories, with 55 of those calories coming from fat.

By comparison, 100 grams of standard ground beef with 30% fat has 273 calories with 164 of those coming from fat.

Yes simple as that

Hopefully on topic Pet pig adopted from BC SPCA killed and eaten by new owners Yes I believe you shouldn’t eat your or anyone’s pets. Though I will eat cooked cow, pig, chicken, fish and seafood.

In my opinion (and based on what I see of societal norms)—horses bond with their owners, but the real reason not to eat them is because they’re just not that kind of animal. Beasts of burden and show and for riding—but they’re not really ‘food’ animals. Not that cost effective to eat, either.