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Comment by mikestew | Hacker News Reader

I'm the vegan in this house, not the dogs. Just this morning on my daily pre-WFH walk I was reminded that many non-humans eat other animals (crows aren't quick about it, either) and that they do not share my ethics, nor should be expected to. Enjoy the canned rabbit, Rover.

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You’re getting a lot of comments along the lines of “aren’t you being inconsistent by letting your dog eat meat?” And I just want to add one point (not for you, OP, but for the group of replies). We don’t have to be perfectly consistent beings, and it’s often better that we are not.

Being a vegan owner who has a carnivore dog is still better than being a carnivore owner with a carnivore dog. It’s better to be inconsistently ethical than it is to be consistently unethical.

I think we can get into logic traps here on HN that ignore the realities (and benefits!) of the messiness of human behavior.

THANK YOU.

Nobody is perfect, and it isn't hypocritical to be imperfect.

I'm not sure your animal's will simply existing is a reasonable argument for allowing their will to be enacted, which sounds like what you're implying. And even if you're implicitly restricting this to food choice, your dog would not put animals in poor farming conditions of his own volition.

But this is only a critique of your statement. I feed my animals farmed pet food.

No, their dog would chase down and kill animals wherever they are, poor farming conditions or not, of their own volition. Animals are interested in eating meat, full stop. How that meat is raised is consequently of no interest to them, though it may be of interest to you.

Technically, if we weren't blocking dogs from leaving the house, they would be out there and eating anything they could get their paws on; they would be enacting their will, on other pets, rodents, etc.

From a strict vegan perspective, you're supporting the killing of other animals in support of your pet. Isn't that inconsistent?

Ah, I see the Hypocrisy Police are as responsive as ever. When the shelters are empty of animals, we will no longer have pets. Mull that over and you'll have your answer.

If I understand correctly, then I would say it's your choice to perpetuate owning a pet, specifically a dog. And in fact, as pointed out elsewhere in this thread, with careful planning dogs can be plant based, and there are even synthesized amino acids available that normally only come from animals but can be grown from yeasts and mushrooms. So you can have your dog and not need to support killing other animals.

There is this popular meme that pet ownership is inherently good and makes owners morally superior. Hint: That is factually wrong. But it leads people to deceive themselves. And as long as this holds, pets will be bred to meet the demand, pet owners will give them to shelters and shelters will never get emptier. Worse: Every pet you take from the shelter will increase market pressure to resupply. The only way to get less pets in shelters is to decrease the supply. That means decreasing pet ownership overall. Make pet ownership frowned upon like smoking. Prohibit breeding altogether.

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