But, we at IDA, and many other organizations, do not believe in the buying and selling of any beings at all, human or other animal. Many activists make an effort to feed their animal companions a vegan diet, thereby avoiding the ethical dilemmas inherent in the question. But, for some animals, namely cats, this is a difficult and unhealthful prospect. In those cases, many people who have adopted cats make a choice that, while contributing in any way to the slaughter of animals is unwanted, they are contributing very very little to the industry that profits off of the flesh of tortured animals. In truth, cattle and other farmed animals are not raised for the food of animal companions, but to satisfy the human consumers of their products.
Animal food is merely a byproduct of the industry.
No, it doesn't. But neither does putting millions of cats to sleep every year while the slaughter of cattle and other animals continues. Sometimes, although we would love to be able to have pure ethics, we must choose the lesser of the two evils, whatever we personally feel that might be. For some activists, that means adopting only vegan or omnivorous animals who can eat a vegetarian diet. For others, that means making a very difficult choice between rescuing the animal we can save right now and hoping, through education and activism, that the plight of the slaughtered animal is lessened so that we do have to find alternate food sources for those animal companions who are carnivorous in nature.