Writer's Block: Pet central

[matrixrefugee]

[Error: unknown template qotd]
I'd go with the term "human companion". The term "guardian" carries the connotation of a legal guardian, ie. to a minor or a severely handicapped adult, and that's giving an animal a status that really doesn't fit. No matter how special an animal companion may be to a person who shares their life with them and regardless of how well-cared for that animal is, it's still an animal. No amount of love or care can change them into a human being, subject to the same rights and privileges as a human being.

Personally, I find the attempts to apply human rights to animals ludicrous at times. Would predatory animals be required to become vegetarians and be subject to prosecution for genocide against or murder of their prey?

Comments

[jezebelesque.livejournal.com]

I agree!

What really bugs me is when people call their pets "fur kids"...what do they call children? Skin pets?

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

:: Snerks:: Oh man, I've had similar thoughts (and I know one or two people among my regulars at work who treat their kids more like pets and their pets more like kids >.< )

[northernwalker.livejournal.com]

I yield to no one in my love of teh canines, but. They are pets. We have domesticated them to the point where they would suffer horribly if they had to live on their own. We are responsible forever for what we have tamed, and I worry that people with this attitude forget that.

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, there was a Writer's Block question a few years back about keeping pet birds which frankly angered me, since it implied that everyone with a feathered companion was keeping that feathered companion imprisoned. Well, I could understand if the bird was captured in the wild, but most pet birds are raised by breeders, particularly parakeets, which are pretty much a domesticated bird, much like a chicken or a fancy pigeon.