Pets and livestock

Subject: Pets and livestock
Date: 2001-12-07 09:24:56 PST

pet 1 a : a domesticated animal kept for pleasure rather
than utility b : [... snipped unrelated definitions ]

-- Merriam-Webster's 3rd New International
(unabridged)

The distinction between companion animals and livestock
is one that goes back centuries if not millenia. It has only
become blurry in recent years, a result of declining farm
contact for most of the population (As recently as 1950
the majority of urban residents had friends or family members
who lived on farms, who they visited regularly. At that time
nearly all farms had at least some livestock). Children's
stories, television, and movies have made this worse as
only exceptional or ficticious animals appear in these media
with any regularity.

Traditionally, a pet is a companion animal. It enjoys physical
contact (eg. petting) with its master. A bond of friendship and
trust is, traditionally, expected to develop between a master
and a pet.

While the keeping of wild and exotic animals is not new, they
have not been considered pets until recently (See Webster
above; undomesticated animals are by definition not pets
according to Webster. Domestication of animals is by
definition a process of selective breeding over the course of
many generations rather than merely placing a wild-caught
animal or its offspring in a cage).

The distinction is important because there is no bond of
mutual trust between livestock and keeper, as there is
between pet and master. Livestock can and do
attack their keepers and this is particularly a problem
with intact males. Ask anyone who has a rooster. They'll
attack the person who feeds them every day, and for no
reason other than that the rooster perceives a threat to the
flock. Further, livestock as a rule do not enjoy physical
contact with their keeper. The inexperienced sometimes
misinterpret the head motions of a young ruminant being
"petted" as affectionate when they are in fact expressions
of aggression. As others have pointed out, this "petting"
can lead to the keeper getting butted right into the next
zip code when the animal matures.

So, BD, with all respect, bulls and other cattle most assuredly
are NOT pets, and efforts to make them such are bound to
fail. And in the case of young bulls, it's dangerous.

Spiders, reptiles, etc., can never really be pets either,
despite what they might say over at rec.pets.herp. They can
be kept, and eventually taught to recognize their keeper, but
no bond ever really develops (at least on the part of the reptile).
The keeping of lions, wolves, and whatnot as pets is another
subject, and one I doubt we'll agree on, so I'll spare you my
views.

The bond between livestock and keeper is still an important
one but it is based on, to use Webster's term, utility rather than
trust. The keeper supplies food, water, space, shelter, and
other needs. The livestock produces some product that is
of value. The stock live out their lives at the convenience of
the keeper and are slaughtered when the value of the carcass
outweighs the utility of the live animal. And despite all the
Disney and PETA-inspired notions that people have, that's OK.

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