Is Having Pets Evil?
So like, is it kinda fucked up that we have pets? Just on a fundamental level I mean. And I'm not talking about exclusively dogs and cats here, every single pet. We've brought animals to live with us for most of human history and that relationship has taken different shapes throughout that time, but like.. is it good?
Cause, where is it that pets come from? It's pretty exclusively one of things ight? Most people probably get their pets from breeders. People who are monetarily rewarded by making the animals they already have breed over and over to produce animals they can then separate from those families and then sell. That feels like.. objectively morally evil? Like, what a horrible thing for the parent dogs that are used as a commodity, and what a horrible thing for the babies who never get the chance to grow up with their parents and their siblings. That's just not a good situation.
Or, you could maybe adopt an animal from a shelter. And maybe you can look at that as a more ethical means, but animals end up in shelters from somewhere else. Maybe they were strays that were picked up, or they were overstock from breeders that they couldn't sell, or maybe they were abandoned by other owners who gave them up. And it's great to be able to take one of those dogs and give them a real home, but it does speak to the systems we currently have in place that we have widespread temporary orphanages for animals because we know we have way more domesticated animals than we have homes foranimals. And, some of those will also put down those animals in order to make room for newer, more desirable ones in the hopes they get adopted instead.
You could of course get your animal from a pet store. Especially if they're smaller than a dog or cat, but again it feels a little weird to basically have an animal auction house where you can go in and assess the value of these animals caught in cages and decide if you want to give one of them the privilege of coming home with you.
Maybe you're lucky though. Maybe you have a friend that's a zoophile and their partner and another animal of their species locked parts and now suddenly you've got a chance to pick up a puppy and bring them into your life. You are still of course taking them from family which is still fucked up, but hey maybe you can bring them to visit every now and then. That's nice, right?
Or, maybe you just find a random wild animal on the street? It's not impossible, especially depending on the animal. Maybe you're unlikely to find a wild horse, but stranger things have happened. And hey, maybe when you find them they're cold and hungry and you can bring them home and clean them up and give them a place to rest and recover. That's definitely the most morally correct way to bring an animal into your life. But then what? They rest and recover and then..
Isn't it a little weird how the things we want from animals tend to be the opposite of the ways that they exist in nature? We have dogs but we don't want them to bark, to mark their territory, to scavenge for food. We put them in houses where they can't run, or use their great sense of smell or hearing. They exist, but decidedly within the structure of our lives, not the other way around. This is true of every animal that lives with us. Cats are discouraged from clawing, if not just getting their claws removed, even though it's part of their natural behavior. Rats are kept in small cages without a family and with few places to burrow and hide as they'd want to. Snakes are kept in tanks and fed dead, reheated food on a schedule when they're natural born hunters. The behaviors that are inconvenient to us as humans are trained out in order to make it easier for them to adapt to us. And that's not even talking about spaying and neutering, which is one of the most blatant examples of this.
And it's not like this is "evil" humans that are choosing to be neglectful to animals, we just don't have a society that really allows for them to exist with the amount of autonomy that they'd have in the wild. Sure, there's always more that you can do, but also it's not like we live in a human utopia where we can dedicate all our time to giving animals the best possible experience. We have our own jobs and relationships and a finite pool of resources. And while it's easy to say "if you can't treat your animal perfectly just don't get one. It's irresponsible" where exactly is that line? If you can buy the best food and the best toys but also you work a lot and so can't go for a lot of walks, is that okay? What if it's the opposite, and you can give your dog all the time and attention in the world, but you're flat broke so you can't afford to feed them a full meal every day is that an acceptable compromise? And if your answer to both those questions is no, then what's the alternative? The animal exists, with or without you. Is it better to leave them in a shelter in the hopes that someone "better" can adopt them? What about the dog those people might have otherwise adopted Like it or not, getting a pet involves putting your burdens on them in a way they didn't ask for or agree to, but it's part of the current social contract all the same. And not just your burdens, but your life. Your schedule, your personality.
They become "yours". Legally a possession, albeit with some extra protections. But, those protections are less about the average person and more about the extremes. For the most part, you become the arbiter of their existence. When they sleep, when they eat. Maybe when they piss or shit. Maybe when they're allowed to come out of their cage. And isn't that pretty weird? I mean, as romanticized as we can make living with an animal, that's a base, fundamental truth. And, I think people would agree in general, something bad. No matter how well you treat them, you still legally have ownership over them. On some level, you're doing a thing that is wrong.
I mean, kinda.
Like I said at the start, we've had relationships with animals for a long long time. And over that time that relationship has changed a *lot*. It's not like we've had animals around purely for benevolence. It was a utility thing. Cats were great at killing pests that might eat or contaminate your foodDogs were great for defense or for hunting. I would even argue that in the beginning the animals that we kept for farmig were the same role in the household that our traditional dogs and cats were. Sure their value was food and therefore somewhat less permanent, but tht was just their role. If dogs were cow sized and cows were dog sized we'd have swapped which one we eat and which one we love. , the end of being able to fulfill dog or cat's "role" didn't generally mean an easy end of life and retirement. It was to be put down, no longer providing a service.
At some point however, that relationship began to change. Animals were still being used for roles, but the divide between food animals and not food animals became larger. Some animals started being used more as status symbols than as tools. Others just became more integrated with the family. When you're around a dog all the time, and you grow up around dogs, and you can see them grow and get attached nd also you don't constantly have the looming threat of needing to butcher and eat them at some point which probably helps considerably. Those animals became more and more a co-habitor. They were allowed to come inside the house, and then they were allowed to stay inside the house, and then, they weren't allowed to leave the house. They transitioned into being pets.
And maybe that's a bad thing. Maybe that's the line in the sand that we needed to respect to be the best possible friends to the animals we exist with. To never bring them inside. To never give them a chance to become entrapped within the human society that we exist within. Sure, they can stay out there and we can co-mingle as the needs decide. But there's the human house where humans belong, and there's the outside where animals belong. And that's something that needs to be constantly enforced, for fear that our influence leads down a path that results in the loss of their autonomy.
Is that better? I mean. That's what we're kinda aiming towards with this article, right? The idea of pets being bad means that there needs to be some kind of alternative. Is that it? That we never should have had pets in the first place? Because at least to me, that feels... Wrong? I just feel like the idea that we never interact with animals outside of seeing them from time to time in the wild is kinda sad. Especially as a zoophile. Pets do bring so much joy to people's lives. And, it's not like it's totally one sided. It's not like nature is a kind place to live either. With us, for the most part they're fed and sheltered and not at risk from any predators. Rats might live in a cage where they may only interact with one other rat, and they don't have anywhere to burrow and hide, but if there are no predators to escape from do they need to have that ability? Cats might get declawed, but if they don't need their claws to hunt or defend themselves is that really the end of the world? Or is that a healthy compromise for living in a place where they get room and board for free? I would be far from the first person to claim to love the lifestyle of pets. Get food, get attention, not have to deal with any responsbilities, just get to lounge and get affection and love, and that's it. It doesn't sound so bad? I mean, it sounds awful for me Tarro the workaholic, but I can see the appeal for sure. And it's sweet.
But also, maybe that cost is too high. At the end of the day, it's not really for us to decide. In a perfect world, we could give them the option. The gilded cage, or harsh reality. But they can't choose. We don't allow them. And yet, it's interesting. If you look at pop culture, the answer we choose is the opposite of the one we impose. In The Matrix people live in a world just like ours, and while it's not perfect, it's better than the real world where we're all being harvested by aliens for something or other. And yet, to escape the matrix is the "correct" choice that the characters make. In the anime The Promised Neverland there's a bunch of orphans living at an orphanage in general comfort. Sure, they're eaten when they get old enough but until then they live an easy and happy life, unaware of their fate. The outside world is full of horror and monsters but they choose to escape into it anyway because freedom is better than confinement. There are thousands of these kinds of stories out there. And in basically all of them the choice is the same. Freedom is always better than living a fake reality, no matter how nice that fake reality might be. Isn't that the same thing we're doing with our pets? We're giving them everything they need in exchange for the things they could want.
This is made worse, of course, by the fact that it is impossible to wind back time. Were we to today say that actually having pets is bad, what would we actually do? Just let all the animals we have in our possession into the wild? That feels extremely bad. It would destabilize ecosystems, be an absolute bloodbath, and that's assuming that everyone just goes along with this mandate. Most animals that are raised by breeders don't know how to exist in the wild. They were never taught. And similarly, not every animal lives in places where there are even enough resources for them to survive. It's really just not an option. Alternatively, we could collectively come together and say "Okay, this is it. No more." We stop breeding, we stop new adoptions. The domesticated animals that exist are the last ones, and from now on nobody is allowed to get a new one. It's not like any whole species would disappear. There are wild dogs and cats in some places, and they could continue to exist. Maybe that's better? But also, isn't that sad? Granted, I only find it sad because I live here and now. Maybe in a generation or two kids would see a family with a dog on TV and talk about how silly that is, and how much more respectful we are to animal autonomy now, because we let them just be animals, rather than our pets. I mean hey, zoosexuals could even still exist. If you want to have a relationship with a dog, move somewhere that happens to have a stray dog population, and just follow the rules around not domesticating them. They live their life and you live yours. Of course, you still have to meet them and everything, but I'm sure there are ways you could figure that out. Maybe it's illegal to bring them inside, but it's not illegal to give them food and treats. And then while they're there you can strike up a metaphorical conversation. Dogs become like birds. You can have a birdfeeder in the yard and watch them come up and eat seeds, and maybe even go outside and take a picture, but for the most part they're something you appreciate from a distance.
Is that better? I mean, in some ways yeah. It does alleviate the ethical burdens. Maybe that really is the best thing that we can do. But also, wow does it suck. And again, who even knows if that's what animals would prefer. That's just choosing for them in the opposite direction. We know that animals can and do express autonomy. If in this world there's a cat pawing at your door and meowing and asking to be let in, do you have to just reject them? Because if not, you could say that any animal you have in your house "asked" to be let in, therefore making the whole point moot. What if you get rats in your kitchen and instead of kicking them out you make them a little nest and feed them. You didn't buy those rats, but you are still keeping them as pets and giving them those conveniences. Especially since presumably you do still need to patch up however they got into your house, meaning that they can't necessarily choose to leave. Maybe there's some weird, perfect hybrid between these two ideas where we can have animals around the house, but with an open door policy where they're allowed to come and go as they please. But again, how do you enforce that? That's basically where we started, and yet we still ended up here. And in places like cities I just don't think it's possible to have that many different kinds of animals just free roaming without encountering much bigger issues. Especially if people have more unique pets. If your free roam pet mouse gets eaten by someone else's free roam pet lizard is the idea that you just throw your hands up and say "oh well, that's life"?
My point to all of this is that there really isn't a perfect answer. Yes, keeping pets is unethical in a number of ways. That's true. But also, it does come with some great perks, and it's hard to say that at this point there are many better options. Maybe some people out there will read this and say that getting rid of our pets is a sacrifice that we have to make for the autonomy of animals as a whole. I don't think that perspective is insane. But also, I just don't think that it's right, either. I don't think having pets is evil. There are plenty great things out there with bad aspects. I think it's important to acknowledge the bad and work towards finding the solutions, but I don't think moral totality makes for a very good society. If all we do is sit around trying to be perfect, maybe we never even manage to be good. Yes right now animals do need more protection. But I don't know where that line is, and at this point I haven't really even heard anyone else trying to figure it out either. The conversations on this topic tend to stop at "Animals are slaves" or "animals are possessions", and then don't offer much in terms of how to fix that problem.
Which is why I wanted to write this, because as zoosexuals I think it's a really important topic to discuss. I love my partner so much. I want nothing but the best for him. But what is the best for him? What is the best for all animals? What can we do, as this planet's dominant species, to make the lives of all animals better? I don't know, but if you have thoughts I'd love to hear them. And until then, I'm just going to keep doing the best I can in the world we live in now.
Maybe having pets is wrong. But I love my partner, and I'm going to spend my life making him as happy as possible, and all I can do is hope that's enough.
Article written by Tarro (January 2026)
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