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Buddhist View on Pets
MindGate
United States Veteran
Buddhistically speaking, what are your guys' views on pets?
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Fish just swim back and forth and wait for the magic hand to sprinkle food.
Indoor cats kind of just sit around and wait for attention/food (assuming they have no playmates).
My first cat we rescued when he was just a baby. He was abandoned outside in a gutter during a storm. We had him for about 13 years. He was an outdoor cat and could do whatever he wanted when he wanted.
I have an indoor cat now and I've had many fishes. I question myself, though, wondering if it is actually "okay" to "own" a pet (such as a fish), according to Buddhist ethics.
I have two albino lab rats and a ferret that live with me. The lab rats came from a veterinary school and are extremely healthy, and the ferret came from a girl whose mom is apparently allergic to small furry animals.
The question is often whether animals should be treated as companions or as domesticated property, but what really gives us the right the assign them one aspect or the other? They are living, sentient beings as well. They are not simply commodity and property, and they don't just compliment our own existence. It is very much a mutual relationship. Trust me, when you have an animal living with you - you "own" them as much as they "own" you. You have to feed them, bathe them, clean up after them, etc. All they have to do is eat, sleep, and be by your side.
i don't know about the whole pet thing. sometimes i wonder if i am truly providing the best possible life for my indoor cats. my one cat we have named the escape artist because he's always dashing at the door to get out. over the years he's made it a few times, sometimes it's been many hours before i've found him...but every time he's howling and terrified and i have to physically go bring him back because he's too scared to move.
and then i think about the cats on my grandmother's farm. she feeds them and gives them scraps from her food and they seem content enough... my uncle even built them a habitat of a sort with bales of hay where they can lay and be safe from the elements... but they still get sick a lot... they die... i don't think that this is better. i think my cats are probably pretty darn lucky.
"owning" a pet is one way to put it... but i think my cats and i provide different things for each other. it's sort of a trade off, but they aren't exactly understanding of that...
I think this makes a really good point. Not many animals are suitable to be pets. Animals like cats and dogs have the ability to form strong social and emotional bonds with people & their relationships with humans are based very much in mutual love and support, which is likely why they were domesticated. They seem to be the only animals that were domesticated for reasons other than working & being 'beasts of burden'. I have very mixed opinions on keeping animals other than cats & dogs as pets.
In addition to being "metta factories", my dogs are also excellent teachers of mindfulness, most everything they know is at the end of their wet noses.
My pet improved my practice.
My dog is my friend and is well taken care of. He eats better than I do, is walked everyday and knows that he is loved.
I have a consistent habit of helping strays, and feel that we've helped create stray cat and dog overpopulation issues and therefore should be accountable. I feel it is compassionate to assist in caring for and providing them a chance at life instead of being caught, shoved in a dirty cell, and euthanized. That's not to say you keep every stray, lol, but humane trapping and fixing goes a LONG way in reducing issues (aka litters of puppies and kittens).
Overall, I like to see having animals around as....they are choosing to be here today, enjoy their company. If they run away, etc, it's their choice and hope they find a place where they're happy. I'm not offended or hurt when a feral cat has been trapped, fixed, released and then runs as fast as it can away from me, lol. And I don't condone removing claws, etc. The only reason I think we should make the choice to fix these animals is because there aren't enough resources to care for continuous litters of puppies and kittens...much in the same way the human population is out of control.
Anyway, off on a tangent, sorry!
Even more, though, I take my responsibility for him and his well-being very seriously.
And I often ponder the karmas that resulted in his poodle rebirth.
My lama, however, on first coming to our centre (from the Dalai Lama's monastery in India), was inexplicably and greatly amused that we would even HAVE pets.