>The problem is overbreeding causing too many animals.
it is we who, pretty arbitrary, decide that it is "too many" - it means that we're killing them pretty willfully ( just a step before "just for fun" and "the sake of killing them")
We definitely didn't do anything to accommodate cats and dogs inside the civilization they helped to build.
>There are limited options in how to handle overpopulation.
2 myths in one sentence - "limited options" and "overpopulation"
It's not arbitrary, the number of house pets is limited to the number of households that can have pets plus the number of animal shelters we have. Once that number is exceeded, the options are set the animals free or find humane ways to control the population. Depending on where you live, setting them free could be a good option or it could be terrible. If the animals have no survival instinct left, they will be left alone to starve to death or die from sickness. In the city, they may be hit by cars, or they might attack other pets. They might even make other pets sick by biting them. They can easily become a nuisance in populated areas, although rural areas have a larger domain for stray animals.
There's no one walking into your house saying "there's too many pets in the world" and shooting Lassie. They only get put down when there is no one left to take care of them.
If you think it's arbitrary, why don't you adopt every homeless pet? If you can't do that, then you have to accept that there is such a thing as overpopulation, that we're there, and that there are limited options for how to deal with the problem.
most of your post is basically speculation, except for the unfortunate reality of cars hitting pets.
Fact-wise:
>There's no one walking into your house saying "there's too many pets in the world" and shooting Lassie.
that is actually what happens when your violate your local pets per household limit. As i said, human civilization policies toward cats and dogs is a circus of arbitrary speculations.
Stray animals can absolutely get in fights with other animals, stray or otherwise
>They might even make other pets sick by biting them.
Stray animals can absolute transmit disease through bites, again to other strays or domestic pets.
>They can easily become a nuisance in populated areas
This seems reasonable; feral cat colonies aren't really an ideal selling point for an area.
>although rural areas have a larger domain for stray animals.
This also seems reasonable; there's more space in rural areas for strays to stake out a claim without bothering the human contingent.
Can you please explain which parts are "basically speculation" and why you think they aren't based in fact?
edit: And I pretty regularly get notices from the shelter where I adopted my cat, saying "We just rescued a large number of animals from a hoarder who was unable to take care of them, please help us find homes for them"; even if the shelter were a kill shelter, that's hardly the summary execution of the pet for the transgression of the owner. This is sounding more like weird local policy where you live (or speculation), as opposed to the fact you presented it as.
it may happen that psychologically ill people among other things may do hoarding, of pets among other things. No argument here. In general these hoarding stories are just scarecrows. I personally knew an old lady with 17 cats in her apartment - it was wonderful - they followed you and around you and played and sat around you like a living cloud. She took perfect care of them, they were healthy and happy, the apartment was clean, etc... Another case i personally know was a happy family with a bunch of children and 5 Chihuahua living in their own house - they were forced to give up one dog because of the 4 dogs limit. Speaking about tough choice - how do you choose which of members of your family to give up?
>And even the scenario you presented here is hardly the summary execution that you listed as a fact previously; can you address that discrepancy?
the dog was given up as the alternative was for it to be ultimately taken away by Animal Control and probably euthanized there - the only difference here is technical details - you mentioned shooting in your house and they use injection on their premises.
That still isn't a response to the question I asked; can you address that question?
And choosing an animal to be given up and taken to a shelter and possibly euthanized is nowhere near the same and shooting an animal on the premises. And again, that's a city-level ordinance, not a governmental one; it in no way applies to everybody, so I don't know why you're presenting it as inarguable fact.
Edit: Honestly, the fact that I need to ask a question three times when it was very clearly laid out indicates that you're just ignoring it, which I can only assume means you don't actually have an answer. If you're interested in actually having a discussion instead of just saying foolish things and refusing to back them up, then please address my question; otherwise, you've got some pretty messed up and honestly harmful ideas that you're proposing here and I hope you're never in a position to enforce your beliefs on anything else.
What are you voting for? Release all the strays into the wild? Mandatory adoption of at least X dogs per household? You haven't taken any position other than "Yes they CAN all be accommodated", which is like a three-year-old refusing to take a bath.
local pets per household limit
You'll have to take that one up with your local government. My town has no such limit.
granting them rights according to their mental capacity and sentience - i.e. about the rights of a 2-3 year old toddler (or a person with extremely severe autism - very close approximation of a cat's or dog's mental capacity). For example - how would you handle an overpopulation by a toddlers? Would you set them free into the wild or euthanize?
EDIT: to CocaKoala below.
>But that's a ridiculous comparison because cats and dogs are not toddlers
i didn't say they are toddlers. I said we should treat others at least according to their mental capacity and sentience. And treatment of toddlers or severe autistic people is an example of such treatment.
>Granting cats and dogs the rights of toddlers or autistic individuals means you're giving up the right to spay or neuter your pet; nobody would advocate for sterilizing a toddler,
exactly. It is definitely time to give up such medieval ways. Why aren't we using pills on cats and dogs? Because we don't want to bother with extra expense and effort. Affording the rights would force us to do it. And it would be for our own good as treating others with consideration and humane compassion would only improve our own civilization.
>but many very reasonable people advocate for sterilizing house pets, and for good reasons.
if you remember anything about the history of human race, you wouldn't invoke the formula "many very reasonable people advocate for <...>, and for good reasons"
TO "dogecoinbase" :
Summary of your post's logic - "affording rights [according to mental capacity and sentience] is cruel". Yep, no way to fight that logic.
TO: CocaKoala 2nd post.
I advocate for granting rights and making decisions on that basis. At the current state of technology i do see that adopting such a basis would lead to the choice of pills over surgical mutilation.
To address your Edit - i didn't insist on specific everyday birth control pill taken orally. If we to talk technical details - long term birth control injection would me more close to it.
For example - how would you handle an overpopulation by a toddlers? Would you set them free into the wild or euthanize?
This is an incoherent analogy brought about by anthropomorphizing non-human creatures, and were it followed through on it would do immeasurable harm to the very creatures you wish to protect. To take the example of pills versus spaying/neutering (so, in your analogy, these hordes of toddlers can reproduce), you assume that their owners would universally be responsible enough to and capable of administering the pill, and that those who were not sufficiently responsible would do something other than abandon the animal when it began menstruating (in the case of a female dog or cat) or behaving in a sexually aggressive manner (in the case of a male).
Then you assert that giving them "rights" would induce people to behave well, presumably under the threat of punishment. This might actually result in a similar situation to toddlers -- forbidden to leave the house or go out of sight of their owners, forbidden to play in potentially dangerous situations, and a variety of other consequences that would be terrible for cats or dogs because they are not human and to treat them equivalently is cruel to the animal.
This common misconception below requires specific addressing.
>This is an incoherent analogy brought about by anthropomorphizing non-human creatures,
No. It is the other way around. The same level of sentience should be treated the same irrespective of the specific set/pile of cells the sentience resides in.
I gave multiple specific examples demonstrating how that incorrect assumption leads to nonsensical and cruel behavior. So, enjoy your nonsensical and cruel belief.
What's so medieval about sterilization? Lots of people do it voluntarily, even in Western countries. 25% of married men in New Zealand have undergone vasectomies, and countries like the UK, Netherlands and Canada have similar rates.
Sure, they are not forced. But then again, it's (rightfully) illegal to force them to take long term birth control injections as well. What makes the sterilization so terrible compared to that?
Neither, I just don't find it that relevant. In any case, if you want a closer example, 1 in 3 women in the US does an hysterectomy, the vast majority including removal of the ovaries.
By the way, we're in agreement in that castration is an unnecessarily invasive procedure; I'm just less shocked by it than you.
Wait, so you're advocating for pill-based animal birth control as an alternative to surgical sterilization, on the basis that subjecting animals to surgery to spay or neuter them is medieval and inhumane?
I want to make sure I'm clear on your proposal before I address it.
Edit: Your edit indicates that yes, I have your position correct. I would submit that we don't do that because it's untenable to round up every stray animal (or even any particular stray animal) and administer a birth control pill every single day. It has very little to do with cost (except in the sense that to implement such a plan would be incredibly, prohibitively expensive) and very much to do with practicality; it is far easier and far more effective to spay or neuter an animal once and then release them back to where they were than to track down, catch, administer pills that risk being ineffective if you miss a dose, and then release again, every day for the duration of the animal's life post sexual maturity.
But that's a ridiculous comparison because cats and dogs are not toddlers, and treating them like they are isn't going to solve the problem?
For example, when you leave a group of toddlers alone for a few days, you don't end up with an entirely new batch of toddlers two months later. That right there changes the dynamic of the issue pretty seriously, and you're just hand-waving that away.
Granting cats and dogs the rights of toddlers or autistic individuals means you're giving up the right to spay or neuter your pet; nobody would advocate for sterilizing a toddler, but many very reasonable people advocate for sterilizing house pets, and for good reasons.
There are very few wild large mammal populations which number in the 100s of thousands, let alone millions. The principle exceptions are all domesticated animals: cattle, sheep, hogs, and the like.
After humans, the largest non-domesticated predator mammal population is likely crabeater seals (11-12 million); land predator, the American black bear (850-950 thousand). There are fewer than half the California sea lions statewide (355 thousand) than there are residents of San Francisco (837 thousand). Most major land predators number in the tens of thousands worldwide, or fewer.
Among ungulates (divided amongst even and odd toed variants for some reason), water buffalo are the most numerous non-domesticated population at about 172 million, followed by species of duiker (7 & 2 million). American bison number 530,000, reduced from a pre-Columbian population of 60 million, and a low of 750 total individuals in 1890.
Of the non-domesticated odd-toed ungulates (generally: horse-like), most numerous are the plains zebra, at 660,000. The next most numerous is the Kiang, 60,000.
In the oceans, several dolphin populations number 1-2 millions.
Among primates, the most numerous non-human population is Müller's Bornean gibbon, 250-375 thousand.
That is: other than humans, most large land mammals have populations equivalent to mid-sized human towns, a few might rival mid-sized to larger cities.
And populations of dogs and cats (83.3 million and 95.6 million respectively in the US according to the Humane Society)[1] are entirely due to direct human intervention.
So i'm assuming that you are advocating the "setting free" of unadopted domesticated pets.
I truly hope for the sake of the animals that my assumption is wrong, or that you are never put in that position of authority.
Euthanasia is the lesser of the many evils for those animals.
He said in another comment that he believes they should be accorded the same rights as toddlers or the mentally disabled. So in that case, euthanizing them just because "we don't have enough homes" isn't going to be an option.
it is we who, pretty arbitrary, decide that it is "too many" - it means that we're killing them pretty willfully ( just a step before "just for fun" and "the sake of killing them")
We definitely didn't do anything to accommodate cats and dogs inside the civilization they helped to build.
>There are limited options in how to handle overpopulation.
2 myths in one sentence - "limited options" and "overpopulation"