I wouldn't eat mine if I owned one, and I know this article might ruffle some feathers, nevertheless as organic gardeners--for a reason--I think we should be informed about the eco-pawprint of our beloved pets (all backed up by research):

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominio...the-planet-eat-a-dog

Next thing you know we won't be able to own pets! How sad that day would be.

Hopefully not, it will never come to that, but I think it's important that we are aware that nobody gets a free lunch (so to speak, referring to the carbon footprint).

So if my dog, who eats 2 cups of food a day, has twice the eco-footprint of a SUV, what do you think the eco-footprint of my brother's 5 kids are? Should we start limiting procreation to become "greeener"?

This quote is the one that kills me... "though we are not advocating eating anyone's pet cat or dog there is certainly some truth in the fact that if we have edible pets like chickens for their eggs and meat, and rabbits and pigs, we will be compensating for the impact of other things on our environment."

Edible pets? Come on. These people don't have a concept of what a pet is... whether chicken, rabbit, dog or cat.

BTW... I'd love to see the actual "research"... I'm finding it hard to believe that pet food is made of meat that would be eaten by people (which the article sounds like it is assuming.) I would guess a large content of the food is scraps. I could be wrong, but I certainly am skeptical.

Trudy said "I bite back!"

If an animal is going to be food (in the case of chickens or rabbits, not cats and dogs), then you don't give him a name. But he's not a pet.

--J--

Actually, it's not unheard of for a farm family to keep breeding stock almost as pets, names and all, while raising the young for food.

Had a couple muscovy ducks named Elvis and Smudge--they knew who handed out the food! Butchered and ate several of their offspring. I could see having a buck and several doe rabbits, named and well handled and accustomed to petting, while harvesting numerous kits from them for the dinner table. Squabbing pigeons and banty chickens also produce plenty of young and eggs, while taking up little space or that much food (pigeons and chickens both will find quite a bit on their own if they free range).

Rabbits also produce droppings that are ideal for both worm beds and for fertilizer---a roomy hutch over a vermiculture set up would not only produce plenty of meat for the table, but the rabbits could eat marginal produce that might otherwise go to a landfill, all veggie leftovers/scraps that are too far gone for the rabbits could go into the worm bed which would provide really awesome castings to enrich the garden. Meat, compost heap, fertilizer factory all in one. Hmmmm...would that have a carbon footprint at all?

While the subject is presented in a way intended to shock, the concept itself is an interesting one. (I'll be keeping my dog and cat--the dog probably doesn't have much more of a carbon footprint than the better class of home security systems that he replaces, and the cat prevents damage to the house and vehicles by keeping down the rodent population, sparing the need for making and shipping new materials and certain car parts).

quote:

Originally posted by CountryKitty:
Actually, it's not unheard of for a farm family to keep breeding stock almost as pets, names and all, while raising the young for food.
... I could see having a buck and several doe rabbits, named and well handled and accustomed to petting, while harvesting numerous kits from them for the dinner table.

We raised rabbits for food when I was young. (It is illegal to do that now in the city -- who knows, perhaps it was illegal then as well.) Yes, we took the rabbit out and played with it. I believe we did have a name for it. But it was never a pet in the same sense as my is dog. I'm guessing your two ducks were never pets in the same sense as your dog and cat.

There are many life choices that I may regret for not being more eco-friendly. I may regret that I use a dishwasher, that I use a clothes dryer most months of the year. But I will not regret the day I went to the shelter and brought back my fuzzy SUV of a dog. He deserves to live too.

I wish the tone of the article would have had a less radical slant. A shocking title may be OK, but the article could have given so much more useful advice than "choose pets you can eat". An article like this is going written off as bad advice from crazy tree huggers. Just think of all of the advice they could have given. Spade / neutere pets. Choose shelters as sources for our pets rather than to have more dogs and cats bred for our companions. There are so many pets just waiting for homes... there is little reason to bring more into the world just so we can have one with the correct pedigree. There are so many less radical steps than choosing edible pets.

I cannot say that I liked the article in its entirety, but what I got out of it is not that we should stop loving and caring for our pets altogether, rather if we can afford them when we objectively look at them as a luxury (this is what a SUV is, not simply a vehicle).

In this respect I agree with the writers of the article, in the sense that pet ownership (as well as pet breeding) is a relatively modern concept---originating with the British, during the Victorian-era, and French upper class, who did not need to work for a living, had too much time at hand and needed an alternative form of companionship.

It is true that people have always kept cats and dogs, but those animals served a purpose and had to work just as hard as their owners to earn their food.

quote:

Originally posted by Octave:
I cannot say that I liked the article in its entirety, but what I got out of it is not that we should stop loving and caring for our pets altogether, rather if we can afford them when we objectively look at them as a luxury (this is what a SUV is, not simply a vehicle).

A pet is a living, breathing creature. An automobile is a THING. You cannot compare the two. The article is not talking about whether or not we can afford them in the monetary sense. It is talking about whether or not they are worth their carbon footprint.

I am not a radical animal rights advocate, but we cannot, must not, even entertain the idea that the only creatures that have a right to live on this earth are creatures that can serve us and write the rest off as a waste We are the ones that screwed up the environment. Not the animals.

The authors never even entertained any alternative ideas of how this could be applied to our everyday lives. In my opinion, they didn't care. They wanted a splashy controversial article that would catch attention. Congrats. They achieved that. But in their inability to look at the data through any other angle than edible pets, they have done more harm than good.

quote:

Originally posted by CatieJayBee:

A pet is a living, breathing creature. An automobile is a THING. You cannot compare the two.

I think I can, instead, if I look at them as acquisitions.
It doesn't matter how I relate to them once I get to own them. And this is where I see the problem, in ownership.

When you say that "we must not entertain the idea that the only creatures that have a right to live on this earth are those that can serve us" you discount the fact that we have already, through extensive breeding, wiped out a big number of specimens from this world, that we are working at eliminating quite a few others that don't serve us through the use of pesticides, and that we keep working at erasing undesirable traits out of our favorite species (cats, dogs, livestock) in the name of profit, consumer desires and pride of ownership.

quote:

Originally posted by Octave:

quote:

Originally posted by CatieJayBee:

A pet is a living, breathing creature. An automobile is a THING. You cannot compare the two.

I think I can, instead, if I look at them as acquisitions.
It doesn't matter how I relate to them once I get to own them. And this is where I see the problem, in ownership.

Please explain. I am obviously missing your point here.

quote:

When you say that "we must not entertain the idea that the only creatures that have a right to live on this earth are those that can serve us" you discount the fact that we have already, through extensive breeding, wiped out a big number of specimens from this world, that we are working at eliminating quite a few others that don't serve us through the use of pesticides, and that we keep working at erasing undesirable traits out of our favorite species (cats, dogs, livestock) in the name of profit, consumer desires and pride of ownership.

I disagree. Perhaps we have not put enough emphasis on preservation, but take a look at the amount of land that we have set aside to protect species. Could we do better. Yes. But that doesn't mean that we have done nothing.

You say "We" eliminate through the use of pesticides. I don't. Do you? "We" erase undesirable traits from our favorite species. All my dogs have been shelter dogs. Not once have I had an animal bred for me. Not once have I looked for a pure bred animal.

Perhaps you are willing to join the "we" at this point. I am not.

Wow I have never heard the expression 'edible pet' before. As an animal person, I have never been able to figure out how people can raise and care day after day for animals that will be eaten- especially raising meat rabbits! Why not raise cats for food then? How are rabbits any different?
One day I will confront someone with a PETA- People Eating Tasty Animals bumper sticker, and say hey I agree, animals are tasty and your fat yellow lab looks tastiest of all! Can I eat him? It is ridiculous to love certain furry animals and protect them as pets and be so violently into eating other furry animals.

Regarding pets being carbon producers- that is idiotic. If people would ever cut back on beef and pork intake we wouldn't have problems with greenhouse gas excess.

As has been brought out above, we are animals too and who gave us the right to treat the earth and animals as we do? We are here to care for them. Its a far cry from how it should be!

I heard a discussion on the radio about this article. Acually I think he was saying if we are going to reduce our carbon footprint we all need to become vegetarians. Now we all know beans are a large part of the veggie diet-- wow talk about your carbon footprint.
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