I am completely opposed to animals being caged in any space. I have seen the repercussions this has on the city spaces from animal poop, animals parked outside restaurants, the culture of dog walkers for people who want to “own” pets but have no responsibility in their needs, the psychological distress of animals in kennels, cars and airplanes as their owners selfishly tote them about as if a Louis Vuitton bag, and the psychological use and abuse of animals. Many people get pets because it is an thoughtless reflex of their needs but never the animals’ needs. It is also a relatively recent social phenomenon which, like slavery, has a similar set of logic behind such actions: they need us to survive, they wouldn’t be able to survive on their own to we have a moral responsibility to take care of them. Again, all in the terms we frame and exercise, never for the animal to be set free.
Animal owners retort with the typical defenses such as: my dog loves being on a leash, riding in the car, canned food, etc. But the real problem is that the comparative life these animals have is non-existent–they exist for generations in people spare rooms, cellars, or the entire house only to be allowed freedom from time to time. Nobody would accept being kept locked up in a house or a flat all day long to be allowed out for exercises and bodily functions twice a day. Why on earth would anyone inflict this on an animal? Furthermore, the idea that animals “want companionship” is a cultural narcissism that really needs to be examined. Animals want to eat and move around freely but our culture of pet fetishism leaves generations of animals with no choice whatsoever.
The real ethical dimensions of animal ownership are the actual ethics of owning any life and having control over its bodily functions, physical movements and psychological possibilities making these vital needs dependent upon your mood, your job, your being awake or not, and your being at home. What infuriates me most is when people maintain that their pets keep them from depression. Great paradigm: you lock up an animal so you can feel psychologically better. Get a good therapist and practice letting go. I would even go as far as to say that people that utilise animals as a surrogate to therapy and working out their issues are predatory upon animals. Animals have needs just like any creature–dogs, cats, birds, hamsters also want to move freely, not shit on pieces of paper or in a box, have psychological connections to those whom they choose to include other species or even humans. They also have the right not to and pet ownership precludes all choices for animals to move, think and feel. They are conditioned to loving one person (as if this were really love) in a desperate act of dependency upon their meals and twenty minutes outside a day (if they are lucky).
I am not saying to let animals die out by any means, but we should simply not allow anyone to own animals at all. They should be free in the country to live, no hunting, etc. In the city, well it is a crazy hypocrisy that we want to have a creature which by its very nature is an animal and most anthropomorphise this creature feeding it according to OUR schedules of eating, walking it according to OUR waking schedules, etc. This is completely unfair to creatures which, although different from humans, have every bit as much right to the freedom of movement and being in the wild where they are happiest.