With that reasoning, parenting is immoral and children should be left in the wilds to prevent them to become independent on a food source. Perhaps parenting then is immoral or what have you, but it creates a two-way situation, where the parents get the chance to raise another ape into the world and the child gets the chance at social contact and an initially easier life.
Where do you get your food? Let as assume at a supermarket. Is the supermarket then immoral for breeding dependency? Is the government immoral for enforcing a capitalist system where paid slaves labour so that people can become dependent on the supermarket? With your reasoning of pet-owner relationship being unnatural, how much more unnatural is the current state of humans who thrive in capitalistic economies?
Keeping pets is not a selfish endeavor, as log as one keeps the mental and physical health of the animal as a priority consideration.
If you have dogs, you can take them to walk with you. They can hunt. They can still roam about, but at their own pleasure instead out of necessity.
Scratching and stroking a dog or cat is far from selfish, the animals clearly gain pleasure from it, some dogs will force their ears under your hands just so that you can scratch them.
One need only to observe an animal to see whether they are happy with the arrangement.
Owning a pet in an urban area is more of a fallacy than pets in rural areas, because the former is more akin to imprisonment. Having animals on a farm or a sizable plot of land, or at least a yard that they can roam with nature aplenty is more acceptable than animals in the house or cramped spaces. That I will concede is not conducive to the health of these animals.
Remember that animals such as cats and dogs have been genetically adapted by human selection and are thus more used to the companionship of humans. The cat I live with wandered about the farm, catching his own prey. I stroked him and he followed me, whereupon I provided food and shelter more congenial than what he previously was used too. He can wander away at any time, as you say, but he obviously gains a greater chance at survival and shelter in remaining with a human.
It is an instinctual method of ensuring your survival by finding a being to hunt and care for you, much like an adult mooching off their parents.
You guys are seeing the issue from the perspective of already assuming the fact that the dog is dependent on you. They are – but because they have been genetically designed to be helpless without us. The natural dog is a wolf – which lives in packs out in the wild. The worst nightmare imaginable for a wolf is to be kept imprisoned inside a house with a human all day long.
Dogs are not wolves. They were once wolves who decided that co-habitation with humans would be beneficial. (The pack mentality remains, albeit in a much altered state)
Go to the third world, the packs of stray dogs do not act as wolves. They act as scavengers, continuing their genetic predisposition towards reliance on tall apes for sustenance.
Keeping a dog in a house is wrong, as stated above, but rural dogs have more freedom and enjoyment.
