Companion animals and the fate of others.

Our attitude to animals in general is a paradox. It’s curious how we humans can be close to our cats and dogs, even sometimes closer to them than our own species. We might do everything for them to make their lives happy, despite the fact that they only offer companionship, (“only”!), and produce no useful products for us to use. We call them pets or companion animals and put great value on them. Mind you, when they can no longer fulfil their role as companions, we might have them shot, well, ‘shot’ full of lethal chemicals to ‘put them to sleep’. But when they are alive, living with us as working companions, we often try to give them the very best. We give them love, food, shelter and provide them with expensive medical care. But not so other animals, who are valued not as companions but as property and edible property at that. These animals enjoy no quality of life whatsoever, a life of perpetual torture in fact.