Keep animals home as pets

First I would like you to clarify the policy implications of your stance. Do you advocate: 1. The release of all animals kept in homes, including animals of produce such as cows, chickens, seeing eye dogs, etc.? 2. The release of all in animals kept solely as pets (solely for companionship)? 3. Simply that it is unethical to keep animals (of produce or company or both) in the home, without any actual advocacy for a solution? I will begin my defense of the ethical issue: 1) Many Animals CHOOSE to live as pets. There a hundreds of stories of pets getting separated from their owners ("free at last!") and then returning to their human homes, sometimes at great expense to the animal. Many pets are not held forcibly in a human home, but can come and go freely via doggy/cat doors. These pets choose not to run away. 2) Ownership of pets has health benefits to the owner. "The survival rates of 92 coronary patients were studied by one group of researchers, who found that within a year after hospitalization, 11 of 29 patients without pets, but only 3 of 53 who had pets, died" ("The Healing Power of Pets," The Saturday Evening Post October 1986) "Written by Allen M. Schoen, D.V.M., M.S., a Colorado State University veterinary medicine professor, the book presents a variety of evidence suggesting that pet ownership can have specific healing effects, including lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels. One such study, done at Australia's University of New England, found that cat owners had fewer psychiatric disturbances than those without feline friends. And research conducted at the University of New York at Buffalo found that hypertensive stockbrokers improved dramatically after owning a pet for six months." (http://www.medicinenet.com...) 3) Current legislation exists to protect pets. For this point I assume developed countries. I know for a fact that the U.S., Britain, Australia, and Mexico all have laws against animal cruelty. On top of this, many individual citizens feel passionate about the subject and do their part to ensure that the laws are upheld. When pets are mistreated, there is general outrage and swift action to uphold justice. The recent scandal of U.S. football player Michael Vick is an example of this. There is also a piece of legislation called the "European Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals." 4) Pets are usually cared for properly. You have provided no empirical evidence for your statement that "We can't properly meet their needs in terms of exercise, diet and environment." As such, any anecdotal evidence that I provide will outweigh your outright assertion without ANY evidence at all (obviously citation of a proper study would trump anecdotal evidence). I own a dog. He has skin disease so my family buys him food that is supposed to be healthy for dogs with skin disease. He always has water in his bowl. I play with him and walk him regularly, and he seems happiest when he is receiving attention. Most people I know care for their animals properly. Some don't, but as mentioned in argument #3, there are laws to prevent animal cruelty. 5) Pets in captivity have higher standards of living due to medical care, housing, and food. People are willing to spend extraordinary amounts of money on their pets. Some animals, in the course of medical care, receive operations, MRI's, and eye surgery. Animals in the wild have no hope of receiving medical care. Pets are provided with shelter that far surpasses that of a wild animal. Wild animals must brave the elements- something which is not only extraordinarily unpleasant (think Chicago winter), but also deadly (think Chicago winter). Human shelter also protect pets from natural predators. You claim that we cannot meet animals' dietary needs, despite the fact that one of the major difficulties in the life of a wild animal is finding food. A wild animal isn't concerned with meeting their "dietary needs" so much as staying alive. Pets rarely have to worry about eating from one day to the next. Food is provided for them by their owners. 6) Humans enjoy owning animals. Humans enjoy the companionship and responsibility of owning animals. This accounts for the popularity of pets. The pleasure derived from the ownership of pets must be taken into account when weighing this debate. 7) Humans can do whatever they want to animals, so long as they aren't being "cruel." Animals have no legal rights besides freedom from cruelty. The burden of proof lies on you should you decide to claim animals have other rights. This being said, you must prove that the average ownership of a pet is "cruel" in order to win this debate in terms of "animal rights." Given the my claims of the benefits of pet ownership, your claim of animal cruelty must be extremely sound in order to claim the "rights" trump card. Next I would like to note that a plan that fixes any supposed ethical issues must be supplied in order for you to win this debate. If you have no alternative to keeping animals home as pets (i.e., you cant provide a course of action that fixes the ethical issues and results in an overall better state of affairs) then I win, because I have shown that keeping animals as pets is the best policy alternative. In other words, even if you show that keeping pets is terrible, you must provide an alternative to show that keeping pets isn't still the best course of action. An example: Say we are are starving on an island and are rationing the food to prevent depleting the food supply. You may say "rationing is terrible, we never get enough to eat and are always hungry." I then say "That may be the case, but what can we do about it?" Because you would be unable to explain an alternative course of action, you have not shown that we should not ration. In a similar way, unless you can suggest a better policy option, you have not shown that we should not keep animals as pets.