I dont understand some pet owners and caged animals

[Rad1um]

There's obviously a bigger picture here, but I guess im not seeing it so im asking for people's view on this:

I go to some friends house and she has like 7 birds. In cages. I dont get that. Or a neighbor he has turtle tank and an iguana. In glass boxes. or dog owners who tie their dogs to the fence.

They claim to love their animals but how is keeping them trapped love? Im not a pet owner, so obviously i dont "get it" and im not like some pet savior, I eat meat. Its awesome. I asked my friend why she has her birds in prison, and she said "they're mine" and I said maybe they want to be free and she said "no they want to stay with me here" and I said "why dont you open that front piece of the cage and see if they want to stay" and she said "no if they fly away they'll starve because they dont know how to find food in the wild".. So i stood quiet but in my mind i was thinking they WOULD be able to find food in the wild if they were freed a long time ago. idk

Any feedback?

[apepi]

I cage my plants to the ground.....

[diddle]

I agree with you regarding the birds (the fact that you shouldn't own them, not that they'd survive in the wild), disagree with the reptiles as long as they have adequate living space and proper diet/lighting, and the dog thing is a bit vague.

[Rad1um]

I agree with you regarding the birds (the fact that you shouldn't own them, not that they'd survive in the wild), disagree with the reptiles as long as they have adequate living space and proper diet/lighting, and the dog thing is a bit vague.

yea vague because thats the only example I have. Neighbors dog is almost always tied to his area. When we walk in to hang out, he's barking at us trying to come to us but is tied up. But always tied up everytime i see him.

[Vvulf]

I agree with you to a point.
I've never understood why someone would want a bird, but that's just me. Same for reptiles, there's just no "connection" there. Keeping a bird in a cage does seem kind of cruel - after all, they're meant to fly. Lizards, snakes, and so forth, I don't think they really care about being caged, but perhaps I'm just ignorant about them.
Dogs tied to a fence or permanently left outside ... I hate that. Dogs are social animals and want to be around their "pack". Caging a dog while you are at work is fine as long as it's not 10+ hours. If you didn't want to take the time to train your animal and keep it with you ... why did you get it? My dog goes with me everywhere, even at work (yes I'm lucky in that).

[Bearshield]

I strongly oppose chaining a dog up and it almost always creates issues with the dog. I do, however, believe in crating a dog if you cannot supervise it. This does not mean leaving it to rot. This means when I run to the store, my dogs are safe in their crates so that I don't worry about them getting hurt/lost/stolen from the yard or getting into trouble around the house. Dogs are den animals and when used properly, many learn to think of their crates as dens. My first German Shepherd would often go and lay down in his crate to rest as I always left the door open for him. As to the other animals you mentioned, I don't know anything about keeping birds or reptiles but if not in tanks/cages, where would you keep them when you aren't handling them?

[Sinndra]

yea vague because thats the only example I have. Neighbors dog is almost always tied to his area. When we walk in to hang out, he's barking at us trying to come to us but is tied up. But always tied up everytime i see him.

in this example it sounds as if the neighbor is uneducated about how to take care of their dog. they have not taken the time to properly train it so their solution is to just tie it up and ignore it. (im assuming their backyard is fenced which is redundant. if its not then the statement doesnt apply)

as to other pet owners in general.. they might cage their pet for its safety. maybe they cage it when they are expecting company. believe it or not, not everybody loves certain pets. and having a certain pet should not be a disqualifyer for being friends.

caging some types of pets give the pet the opportunity for privacy. the cage should be a safe spot. some place the pet is happy with, sorta like having your own bedroom as a child.

24/7 caging is not my idea of educated and experienced pet ownership. its lazy and cruel.

[OzoAndIndi]

Depends really. The lucky birds, esp those like parrots, are the ones who spend a lot of time out of the cage and just free in the house. Some animals need a proper habitat, and most creatures need a space that is all their own and isn't always a bad thing. Tying the dog in the yard because it would otherwise get away, possibly come into harm if it did, in some cases might harm other people or animals, and the mere fact that in many places it's illegal to allow your dog to be out running around on it's own like that... The only people that suck imo in that case are the ones who have a dog that ONLY spends its life outside on a rope.

As much as it would be awesome for my fish to not have to spend on their time in their tank, I'm afraid in that case you're going to have to excuse me for keeping these particular pets in there... They aren't exactly native to the waters around here, and while they originally started out in our backyard pond with the rest of the 'common' goldfish, these two needed to come indoors when temperatures got cooler and have stayed in since... else next time they just be too big to reasonably bring indoors and I wouldn't want to see them die from the cold. We've lost too many fish the last number of years to the stupid herons anyhow (and gave up on having a pond last year), I really don't want my pets to be lunch for something. :\

[Al Gorefiend]

If an animal spends its entire life confined to its cage, how does it know of a life beyond the cage? How is it sad? Does it long to be free? Of course not, it doesn't know theres anything beyond the cage.

Of course, trapping wild animals who were roaming the woods and keeping them confined is cruel and inhumane, and there are laws against it. However keeping an Iguana in captivity, that was born in captivity, and gets free food and no threat of predators sounds like a pretty chill life.

Since I'm a freak, my pet of choice is rats. I open the door to my rats' cage and neither of them have any desire to move. Both are content with sleeping lazily and getting table scraps. I let them roam the house every now and then, but they generally just find a corner and sleep.

[Uproot]

When I had birds growing up, cages were left open and they flew around the house. My Iguana would sit on my shoulder and be totally enthralled with the TV. It is completely up to the owner how they would like to treat the animals they've adopted into their family. In that same breath I would add some people don't deserve to "own" pets.
But nothing you described is hateful or treating the animal badly, especially tying up a dog. It has to be done sometimes, some dogs can't handle the freedom (LOL) and will cause trouble or get themselves hurt. Had to scrape up enough dogs off the road in my life to feel tying them up is a good deed. Also knew a guy in high school, ran over "stray" animals for fun, and by stray I mean any animal he could get his hands or car tires on. So to this day I don't feel good letting any of my pets or my families pets roam free.

[Al Gorefiend]

Also knew a guy in high school, ran over "stray" animals for fun, and by stray I mean any animal he could get his hands or car tires on. So to this day I don't feel good letting any of my pets or my families pets roam free.

What the actual fuck...

[Deleted]

I'd say someone who lets their dog run around freely is pretty irresponsible and probably shouldn't have a dog.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I'd say someone who lets their dog run around freely is pretty irresponsible and probably shouldn't have a dog.

That's a very big blanket statements. There are a lot of dogs that are perfectly valid to let them run as they wish. They're trained enough to do it. Free dog doesn't equate irresponsibility.

[THE Bigzoman]

I hate people that own caged carnivorous animals and proceed to feed it live prey.


Unethical as shit.

[grandpab]

One of our dogs was trained to a cage since he was a puppy. Now you start turning the lights off and he goes to his cage on his own, and even though hes got full range to the house in the middle of the day a lot of the times you'll find him laying in his cage.

I tried training my dog with a cage and he just couldn't do it, he hated it so much and it wasn't worth putting him through all that misery hoping he'd get use to it. Now he sleeps on my bed...

[Eroginous]

There's obviously a bigger picture here, but I guess im not seeing it so im asking for people's view on this:

I go to some friends house and she has like 7 birds. In cages. I dont get that. Or a neighbor he has turtle tank and an iguana. In glass boxes. or dog owners who tie their dogs to the fence.

They claim to love their animals but how is keeping them trapped love? Im not a pet owner, so obviously i dont "get it" and im not like some pet savior, I eat meat. Its awesome. I asked my friend why she has her birds in prison, and she said "they're mine" and I said maybe they want to be free and she said "no they want to stay with me here" and I said "why dont you open that front piece of the cage and see if they want to stay" and she said "no if they fly away they'll starve because they dont know how to find food in the wild".. So i stood quiet but in my mind i was thinking they WOULD be able to find food in the wild if they were freed a long time ago. idk

Any feedback?

I totally thought this was going to be about players in Wow and their caged battle pets.

/myfacewhen

[Deleted]

That's a very big blanket statements. There are a lot of dogs that are perfectly valid to let them run as they wish. They're trained enough to do it. Free dog doesn't equate irresponsibility.

Hence the probably, if it's well-trained I don't mind but I haven't seen many well-trained dogs. I got somewhat injured when one idiot didn't have her dog on a leash when I was riding my bike to the store, the dog jumped up on me, causing me to fall.

[OzoAndIndi]

Reminds me that a cat we had years ago was allowed to remain as an indoor/out door cat after we took him in as a stray. He was pretty street wise and all that so it wasn't a worry in that regard.

However, a nutcase of a dog our neighbor had at the time would occasionally manage to get out of their house or yard. Our cat was not afraid of ANY dog...except that one. Once, while one of the owners was over here chatting with my mother in our front yard their horrid dog got out and ran over here. Our cat was out there and jumped up on the exterior brick windowsill to try to get away from the dog. Damn thing grabbed our cat off the windowsill with his jaws. Fortunately because the dog's owner was able to step in so fast our cat was not harmed, but wtf... My ass if anyone thinks it's terrible that not all pets get to run free.

One of our dogs was trained to a cage since he was a puppy. Now you start turning the lights off and he goes to his cage on his own, and even though hes got full range to the house in the middle of the day a lot of the times you'll find him laying in his cage.

Same way with the dog we used to have. While we'd shut him in there on occasion - say, someone vising is afraid of dogs or has a small child... he was a hyper breed, so yea - his crate was his personal space. Generally it was open and he'd just go in there and take a nap on his own.

[Deleted]

Because animals are generally very curious and not very smart.

If you have a pet bird that you let roam around your house, a lot of your stuff is going to get chewed up. Bird shit isn't a problem if you train them properly, but good luck training them not to chew on things.

If you leave a door or a big window open, it's going to go have a look outside and probably get itself lost. That's not the same as a "bid for freedom", that's just curiosity.

Believe it or not, most pets like being stroked, they like being fed, they like getting new toys and they like interacting with humans.

Edit: Also, if you have a bird, you should be letting it out of it's cage often anyway, so that it can fly around the room, just make sure that you keep windows and doors closed.

[Deleted]

Love in itself for anything is selfishly bi-ased.

Hence why you can still love an animal while keeping them caged. Either because Safety, or because selfishness.

If it's torture or not, is another discussion.

Not that Love cannot possibly equate to Torture. Just fyi.

- - - Updated - - -

I'd say someone who lets their dog run around freely is pretty irresponsible and probably shouldn't have a dog.

Depends on the dog.

Shepherd dogs require to be free and run free - Doing otherwise results in very bad times. Like chewed up sofas. (I know from experience).

But dogs that don't require to be free and running by default - Yes. They should train it. If not, do not let it run free.