Besides, cats and other animals don’t have ethics. They don’t think of it as right or wrong. Even if it were healthy for the cat to eat no meat, what’s the point? It doesn’t get it and never will.
I think my colleague’s a twit, but I can answer that. If she feels it is unethical to participate in the killing of any animal, then she can reasonably conclude that she should not feed a pet meat. However, the correct solution, as others have observed, is to choose as her pet an animal that is herbivorous, or at least omnivorous.
Another point: when my mother used to keep spider plants, our cat would eat them when she needed to bring up a hairball. It usually did the trick.
Because their nervous systems can handle a single action at a time. There isn’t enough time between “spouting idiocy” and “gasping for air” for “falling down.”
(Completely unrelated PS: Seeing your name always makes me want to start looking for Thai restaurants.)
That makes sense.
I’d feel the same way if someone wanted to stop giving their kids meat/dairy out of ethics if their kid didn’t agree or just was too young to understand the concept. It just seems so empty if the creature you’re depriving doesn’t care.
I think I’d explain it to her this way. There are some things in this world, which, attractive and desirable as they are, are quite simply wrong for us because doing them or acquiring them would go against our principles. I mean, she wouldn’t date a guy, no matter how handsome or charming he was if he was a hunter who had no intention of giving it up because hunting doesn’t fit in with her views about how animals should be treated. By the same token, cats are charming and entertaining, but if you’re so much of a vegan that you don’t believe in feeding animals meat, they aren’t a good fit for your lifestyle.
Then again, if she’s the kind of man-mad woman who goes after anything in pants, you may want to try a variation on this argument.
Her heart isn’t in the right place, though. She has available to her more than enough data to know that this is likely to do the cat more physical harm than good, but has made an affirmative decision to subordinate that risk to the narcissistic moral glow she hopes to enjoy from making some petty point with her cat’s life – proving that she is superior to those so-called vegetarians who are so cruel as to feed their animals meat – hypocrites!
Nope, she’s stupid, that’s for sure, but she’s also prideful, and that’s one of the deadly sins.
You could show her this picture. The winner of “Cat and Mouse” is nearly always a foregone conclusion.
Or this. I didn’t know a four-month-old cat could do that.
Forgive me not reading the whole thread, so I missed if she plans to let the cat outside or not. If she does, the cat will find prey to satisfy its nutritional needs. If not, my guess is that the cat will make Getting Outside its topmost order of business, since that where the real food is. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the cat doesn’t return. We cat owners do tend to project our feelings of devotion and affection on our pets. In my opinion this isn’t entirely invalid, but with the caveat that much of a cat’s affection to us is based on the warmth of laps and the ready food supply. It’s love of a kind, since both cat and owner fulfill a very real need for the other. But take real meat out of the equation where a cat’s concerned, and love dies. We do keep ours in, but we give them real cat food. Also occasional chicken scraps. They show little interest in going outside; for example, they don’t run to the door when they hear it being opened. In fact, one of them was so unhappy when we tried to take him out on the balcony for some fresh air he cried until we let him back inside.
Of course, there’s always the chance that the OP’s friend’s cat won’t run away, but will try to help the friend, who, judging by the food supply, is unable to hunt.
