Animals Like Vegans Better?

[Dennis]

Russ Im twice your age and so have known twice as many vegans ;-)

It isnt really depressing because slugs, snails and spiders are my favourite animals - I'm not keen on cuddly ones.

[~*Sarah*~]

"Stroking - yuk. Having to touch their sweaty dirty coats" - Dennis my cat isnt dirty or sweaty AT all shes absolutely beautiful!!!!! and shes no hassle at all!

and my dog, fair enough she sits and makes eyes at you cause she wants your dinner, but shes after MY VEG and not my parents meat! I think my dog wants to be a vegan!

[Dennis]

Dennis my cat isnt dirty or sweaty AT all shes absolutely beautiful!!!!! and shes no hassle at all!

Really! Id be delighted by an introduction - purrrrrr!

[emzy1985]

I have recently come upon a rescued kitten. She was in an horrific state. Fleas, worms, sores, cat flu and a fear of humans. She has been with us for a week and is lookin and feeling alot better. Me and my gf are vegan and veggie and my house mate is omni. She loves us but won't go near him....it's not a man thing either cuz male veggies and vegans she is fine with too. Wierd! (maybe it's cuz he is ginger lol )

[Agatha]

i fostered a rescue kitten earlier in the year. i had known her since she was a baby as she lived with a family i worked with. This was a pretty violent household and the children there were on the At Risk register. My job was to help to function to together as a family. the kitten was never very well looked after, she was rarely fed unless it was by me or a colleague, she didn't have clean water and nowhere to sleep except under the washing machine. The RSPCA were called twice and couldn't do anything while she was being nearly daily albeit not by the people who should have been. so really that gave us the choice of feed her she has to stay in that environment, or starve her so the RSPCA will take her. but then the children became increasingly violent towards her treating her like little more than a toy (and all there toys were broken). so enough was enough the lead Social Worker finally madde the decision to remove the cat. The family asked me to take her as she would follow me about and sit on me knee on the rare occasions i got to sit down.

i was quite surprised how different she was in my home. The first day she wouldn't leave the kitchen. I had to pick her up to show her round my flat. she wouldn't stay in a room if i wasn't there, if i managed to sneak out she would hide. The first 3 days she sent mostly under my bed, i had to keep coaxing her out and putting her on the bed. She would sit on the side of the bath while i was in it or cry outside the bathroom door if i tried to shut her out. apparently she cried by the front door for hours when i went out. She wouldn't go anywhere near my flatmate but i'm sure this is because i was the main food provider and owner of the bed! she had her own bedroom but i took her a while to get the confidence to sleep in their on her own.

Within three months she was a very happy healthy cat who enjoyed jumping on me in my sleep, unpacking the shopping with me, jumping out of windows and taunting the nieghbourhood cats. oh and she learnt to miaow. She still got nervous if we had visitors, sometimes losing continence if men came round. mind you i'm pretty scared of my landlord too.

[sandra]

Dennis! I can't believe you said that!
Dogs and cats are no dirtier or smellier than anyone else!
People go on about germs............well, humans spread far more germs than any animal does!

[Russ]

Russ Im twice your age and so have known twice as many vegans ;-)

That doesn't really make sense ... when I was ten and a half I didn't know half as many vegans as I know now. I didn't know any.

(Being older doesn't necessarily mean your view is more valid and that you can simply discard what I say. I'm not saying this to you specifically - there seems to be a lot of that attitude on this forum, and I'm certainly not the only one who has said so.)

[sandra]

I agree Russ!

[horselesspaul]

I refuse to agree with Russ until he is my age.

Personally, I think that most vegans are more "open" in the presence of animals and that is a vibe they understand.
I have also met several vegans who are afraid of their own shadow and animals can sense that one easily.

[emzy1985]

Slightly off topic....I hate being judged by my age. I'm 21 but I've got a house, car and job and have had since I was 17. Same stuff as people twice my age. I live as a person not as society expects or dictates to me to act or think because of my age or demographic location.

HORSELESS PAUL - what do you mean by "until you are my age?"

[Kiran]

I dont know about animals liking vegans better, but do all vegans necessarily like animals.

That depends on what "liking" means. Many vegans refuse to have pets because of the extra effort needed to take care of them. This is much better than having pets and neglecting them. If someone has pets and does not look after them properly, then they can't be termed as vegans irrespective of their dietary habits.

I dont. I do my best to stay away from them - horrible things.

Horrible things? Why exactly? Animals being hygenic, unhygeneic, ferocious or tame is all attributed how the pets are brought up by their owners. If you think your pet is horrible then that reflects on how you have taken care of them.

It is just like having kids. To many vegans, pets are like babies and a very significant part of their lives. Calling animals horrible is as inappropriate as calling kids horrible. It is even more worse if a vegan feels this way.

Why anyone would want an animal in their home is beyond me.

......because they want companion animals as a part of the family. Besides many vegans have pets that are rescued, injured or abandoned.

With 'pets' in the house it just never seems clean and they are always round your feet waiting for you to feed them meat, or bringing in creatures that they have killed from the garden. And then there is the vet bills and who looks after them if you are not at home.

Like I said before, you can have your pets clean if you want to. I think the point you are making is irrelevant because many people treat their pets like their babies. You would not detach yourself from your baby just because he/she poops all the time, cries in the middle of the night or wants to be fed. Animals are just like this. Vegans who adopt animals, automatically take up the full responsibility of doing the needful at the right times, instead of complaining that their animals are horrible.

Many of the 'vegans' I have known insist on filling their homes with animals usually cats or rats and pretend to be such animal lovers, then leave them for a week while they go to some mother earth festival and return to a house full of dead birds and cat shit. Why is it that for some being a vegan means living in a house full of animal shit?

If the people you know are so irresponsible about leaving their pets at home without feeding them, then those lot are not vegans. Veganism is not just dietary habits. Obviously, you have not met real vegans.

Stroking - yuk. Having to touch their sweaty dirty coats.

Don't you sweat? I guess people have to refrain from shaking hands with you or hugging you because you too sweat!

Russ Im twice your age and so have known twice as many vegans ;-)

Completely inappropriate! Russ can handle 15 pints of beer in one go. Can you do 30? Just because you are twice someone's age does not mean that you are twice as clever as them or have twice the proportion of their achievments.

[horselesspaul]

HORSELESS PAUL - what do you mean by "until you are my age?"

Simultaneously. Russ must invent a time machine in order to be taken seriously, apparently.
Russ, if it works, perhaps we could just make me younger but obviously less authoritative?

[harpy]

Cats don't sweat much - only through their paws I think, so if their coats are sweaty it's probably someone else's sweat. I think Dennis is entitled not to want to hang out with animals if he doesn't want to, but I also think he has been unfortunate in the vegans he has met because the ones I know look after their companion animals very conscientiously.

I also suspect Dennis was joking about being older - it's like the Lory/sister in "Alice in Wonderland" saying "I'm older than you and must know better". BTW I apologise if I've been guilty of ageism myself. I'm afraid I'm rather patronising sometimes but it's not to do with people's age which I don't usually think about unless it's the topic of discussion - and when I do think about it I realise there are people half my age who know twice as much.

[absentmindedfan]

Indeed. I know some incredibly stupid older people and some fabulously smart younger people, and vice versa. Working in FE I often found I got much more sense and thoughfulness out of my 15 year old students than the teachers 30 years their senior!

Knowledge is not dependent on age.

[horselesspaul]

I learn new stuff from 4 year olds..

[emzy1985]

It is just like having kids. To many vegans, pets are like babies and a very significant part of their lives. .

Yes yes yes! My kitten is my baby.....hehe!

[Russ]

Paul was only kidding

I should clarify that I meant literally a tiny minority of people (perhaps only even one or two) on this forum and I wouldn't include Dennis in that just because of one jokey comment he made.

But yeah, people have different experiences at different times in their lives, I'm sure there's some things I'm a lot more knowledgeable about than most people twice my age.

END OF SIDETRACKING

New/old discussion
Animals: do they like vegans better?

Edit: whoops I replied without noticing there was a "page 4" of posts

[Russ]

I also suspect Dennis was joking about being older - it's like the Lory/sister in "Alice in Wonderland" saying "I'm older than you and must know better".

I'm sure he was too. I didn't take it too seriously. But it did remind me of some previous discussions I've been involved with on here.

BTW I apologise if I've been guilty of ageism myself. I'm afraid I'm rather patronising sometimes but it's not to do with people's age which I don't usually think about unless it's the topic of discussion - and when I do think about it I realise there are people half my age who know twice as much.

I wasn't thinking of you at all when I wrote that, from what I've seen you always give reasoned arguments in discussion ... I don't think I've ever seen you bring up age as a strategy in order to 'win' a debate ...

[horselesspaul]

Shut it, youngster!

I tend to like vegans better, why shouldn't other animals?

[Mahk]

Personally, I think that most vegans are more "open" in the presence of animals and that is a vibe they understand.

I think that says it all, really. Animals tend to like people they think like them. That's the only thing they can sense. They haven't a clue as to which humans eat meat and which worry if the Di-Acetyl Tartrate Ester of Monoglyceride in a burrito tortilla is animal sourced.

[harpy]

Thanks Russ - I must try to be less paranoid in future

A counterexample to the "animals like people who like them" theory seems to be provided by cats, which often seem to head straight for people who are scared of them.

It's possible that the cats know they have the upper paw and are trying to press home their advantage, though

[Dennis]

I also suspect Dennis was joking about being older -

I was, hence the ;-)

Sorry, if I inadvertantly opened up some old wounds on here. I didnt know there was an issue surrounding Russ's or anyone elses age !?

[Russ]

Haha. Not wounds exactly. I was really referring to some posts from a while back. Just wanted to make sure we didn't go down that route again .. !

It's no big deal though. At all.

[Heartsease]

A counterexample to the "animals like people who like them" theory seems to be provided by cats, which often seem to head straight for people who are scared of them.

It's possible that the cats know they have the upper paw and are trying to press home their advantage, though

I read that the reason cats seem to head straight for the scared people is to do with eye contact. People who adore cats sometimes stare at them which cats might find confrontational? Nervous people may be showing less interest in the cat and so their body language is more acceptable to the cat.

But indeed Harpy...they may also know they have the upper paw!!

[BlackCats]

(I really laughed at Horselesspaul's comment about Russ earlier today - I assumed he was kidding which I'm sure he was.)
Kids come out with comments that really make me think. They observe things that adults don't even question.

ANYWAY - I am only around cats so I can only speak for their behaviour - but the ginger cat I'm trying to help/feed still growls/hisses at me - he obviously hasn't had his vegan newsletter so I'm not sure animals like vegans better.
(Also whenever my mother in law comes to the house my cats barrel for the catflap - they can sense evil so maybe it's partly true.)

[harpy]

I find it easier to understand why cats are repelled by people who like them (e.g. because they look at them a lot and it makes the cats nervous, as Heartsease says) than why they're attracted to people who don't like them. We had one cat, Greed, who never sat on laps at all except when a cat-fearing friend came round and then Greed would always make a determined effort to get on his lap. Perhaps they like the smell of fear

Also whenever my mother in law comes to the house my cats barrel for the catflap - they can sense evil so maybe it's partly true

Oh dear - that bad?

[Cup'O'Tea]

My cat seems to love me more than ever, and my mom's new kitten has taken quite a liking to me. When I was vegetarian, I went to my grandpa's cabin and stood with my face an inch away from a birdfeeder, and a bird landed and ate seed for at least a couple of minutes just inches away from me. I took a step back when he flew away, and then another bird landed on my head and stayed there for about 15 seconds.
Later that night, I awoke in bed to feel a mouse running across my head.
No, I wasn't dirty or gross or anything, they just seemed to be attracted to me most out of the 12 people I was there with.

[Poppet]

My cat loves me, but she always did, because I'm the one who feeds her probably.
My friend's rabbits let me pat them and don't let my friend near at all.
Maybe "prey animals" like Vegans better because we aren't a threat, but dogs don't seem to like me much.. Perhaps they think I am food.

[Billy]

To be honest, I don't think you can answer that question in generic terms. It's like saying "do animals like people with brown eyes better". I'm on a dog forum, where everyone loves their dogs to bits and will do anything for them. The vast majority of these people are omnivores, but you bet their dogs think the world of them! I used to have 2 vegan friends, long term vegans who had the ethics right, but practically could not deal with animals at all. Their awkward behaviour around my 2 dogs was so obvious - in the end they (my dogs) didn't even bother with them anymore. Then my flatmate's bf wasn't vegan when she first started seeing him (he is now though! ) but both my dogs have been mad about him since practically day one. Malcolm getting up off his bed and showing happiness at seeing someone is something that you really don't want to take for granted, LOL!
I think animals like people for who they are, not what they are.
Whoever it was (sorry, I've not read all 4 pages of this thread) who has such a strong dislike for animals ('pets' - I hate that word!): just don't make the mistake to think that because you're a vegan you automatically have to like all animals. Just respecting them, and their "owners" feelings abut them, is enough. And those so-called vegans who think it is okay to leave a house full of animals to go away for days on end to a festival, or even campaigning (the the animals left behind it's all the same), are just plain irresponsible if not cruel and give the rest of us a bad name.

[Mzee]

I'm a country person who loves animals, but I can still see some of Dennis's points.
I'll stroke friends' animals, but I wouldn't keep a 'companion animal' myself. It would have to be naturally vegan itself; a dog or cat might get used to vegan food, but would still have an instinct to attack wild animals. I did consider a house rabbit, but it would be cruel to leave it while I went to work.
I rescued a feral pigeon chick once that fell out of its nest in the factory I was working in. I had to hand feed her until she was fledged and then teach her to fly and show her which plants in the garden were safe to eat and to be scared of cats. In the end, one day she refused to come back to me and instead flew up onto the roof. So I considered that a successful return to the wild, but I'm not convinced she didn't get eaten by a cat or run over by a car on her first day of freedom, so I wouldn't do it again.
Anyway, end of diversion. I've thought a lot about the question of companion animals and I've reached my conclusions; I'm just surprised that so many, (apart from Dennis) seem to have reached different conclusions.
As I see it the 3 main reasons for going vegan are (not necessarily in this order):
1. To avoid animal cruelty;
2. A healthier lifestyle;
3. The environment.

I think the effect of having companion animals goes against all 3 reasons:
1. I think it's cruel to keep an animal as if it was your baby; its best parents must be of its own species. Hard as it is, I have decided that I have to enjoy watching animals in the wild. I'm lucky to have a bit of garden, so all the flowers in it (planted around the edges) are native species. I put in a small pond (fish- free, obviously) and planted that with only native pond plants. In the centre of the garden are my vegan organic vegetable beds (which benefit from the wildlife attracted by the rest of the garden).
2. There are many human diseases which can be caught from companion animals, just as the animals can catch diseases from us.
3. Most companion animals are not native species. Recent DNA analysis shows that the domestic cat is not descended from the native wild cat, but from one in the Middle East. The domestic dog is descended from the wolf, but has been selectively bred to produce varieties that some humans think look "cute", but are so in-bred that they suffer from all sorts of genetic defects.
My garden gets visited by cats from neighbouring properties; they contaminate my vegetables with their non-vegan faeces and they have killed some of the wild birds that I managed to attract. This scares off other birds from visiting, so there are fewer to control vegetable-eating insects.

[Mahk]

I rescued a feral pigeon chick once that fell out of its nest in the factory I was working in. I had to hand feed her until she was fledged and then teach her to fly and show her which plants in the garden were safe to eat and to be scared of cats. In the end, one day she refused to come back to me and instead flew up onto the roof. So I considered that a successful return to the wild, but I'm not convinced she didn't get eaten by a cat or run over by a car on her first day of freedom, so I wouldn't do it again.

*picturing Mzee flapping arms, running and jumping about*

When you taught the lessen about fearing cats, did you speak in pigeon English?

But seriously, you and Dennis have some good points, but should you have just watched the poor chick starve of dehydration right there on the factory floor where you found her/him? Wouldn't that be a form of animal cruelty? [I'm just playing devil's advocate here.]

[magpie]

It may well be partly that you don't have the smell of death about you anymore, but animals also live in a world far beyond the obvious, they not only know what you do, but they know what you know and what think you know, they live in the real world, not the projected delusion we participate in.
Your choice of diet, chosen for whatever reason is blessed and the pure of heart are sending you a message that that is what it is, at least that's how I would interpret it.

[citameht]

It is the smell. I used to really be pestered by mosquitos when I was in a forest or swamp as a kid, but lately so few of them would end up "going in" that an occasional shrug will keep them off. And I've taken some okay pictures of wild animals but I can't compare since I didn't do photography as an ov.

[umbilical]

before being vegan i used to be bitten by a bee at least once a year
but since then....no beemarks on my skin anymore

but i can't tell if my dog likes me more
i think he doesn't, cause i don't buy him any bones anymore....