Calling animals 'pets' deemed 'insulting'
This got me thinking.. isn't this another case of PC. Is pet a derogatory term ?
I don't think so. I know that many use the term "pet" to refer to their loved one ...
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Pet owners should stop calling their animals "pets" because it's insulting, leading academics claim.
Domestic dogs, cats, and other creatures should instead be called "companion animals" while owners should be known as "human carers", they say.
The call comes from the Journal of Animal Ethics, a new academic publication, edited by the Rev Professor Andrew Linzey, director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics.
In its first editorial, the journal also condemns the use of terms such as "critters" and "beasts", and even "wildlife" because it suggests "uncivilised".
It argues that "derogatory" language about animals can affect the way that they are treated.
"Despite its prevalence, 'pets' is surely a derogatory term both of the animals concerned and their human carers," the editorial claims.
"Again the word 'owners', whilst technically correct in law, harks back to a previous age when animals were regarded as just that: property, machines or things to use without moral constraint."
Prof Linzey also hopes to see phrases such as "sly as a fox", "eat like a pig" or "drunk as a skunk" stamped out.
Ananova
Bats rights! :(
Pet- An animal kept for amusement or companionship.
The is the definition of "pet." These "academics" are idiots.
Refer to my daughter as "lamb" "kittun" etc....Whatever would prof. Linzey think??
I saw a former companion animal a "monkey" maybe a young baboon who has outgrown his welcome as a pet chained to a car in Simaisma outside his owner's house! Apparently exerted his rights by becoming aggressive! Reported to QAWS (Qatar Animal Welfare Society) no reply yet! Until a country has a law protecting the weak and defenceless, the young and dumb, can it truly be called civilised? Qatar has made great strides in individual human rights with Family Laws, Human Rights Committee etc. let us push onto the next target! Animals rights!
Next thing you know and people will start complaining about calling women 'servants', controlling their movements, controlling their social habits, telling them what to eat, and dressing them according to the whims of their owners (sorry I mean sponsors).
What is all the fuss about...did the animals complain?
may be this person watch the movie RIO, the parrot called himself as a companion not a pet. hehehe
whoa..
Betsy, the sexy sheep must surely be termedas a "companion animal" , but cat ????????????
The Doha zoo is one of the most depressing places to visit in Qatar. If this is how they treat publicly displayed animals, one cannot help but to worry about all those tigers they keep locked up in the back garden.
I getting sick as a parrot, PC is just getting out of control.
Next thing they would want us to stop eating meat! nah I love my Steaks, spicy wings and grilled lamp chops!
Animals such as dogs and cats have been selectively bread for thousands of years into animals that can really only exist as human companions or pets. While perhaps degrading to do this to a wild animal, some animals by their very biology are pets.
why not be angry as an elephant ?
Nutters! Makes me as angry as a Beaver!
No comments on this animally thread as I still remeber the way my dad's hunting dod destroyed one of my dolls when I was small.., unfortunately we couldn't put that arogant dog on an anger managment program. Gosh... dog behaviour drives me crazy at times
I think insects are better off than humans. They basically rule the world. And they still will when all humans are gone!
I wouldn't worry about being extremely or for that matter to any extend of being PC with animals[!!!!] until the last of my Human Brethren lives in complete dignity as I firmly believe in God's hierarchy of putting Man as on the top rung of all his creations.
Steaks!
strange i wonder what should we call the animals which we eat???
"DIET ANIMALS"????
I can never understand why so called animal lovers say that they own an animal. How can you own any other living being.
Another idiot.
why cant the pets be called animals.
Why shouldn't the West be alloweed to have Mutawas, too?
world is surely going crazy....
I know. I couldn't focus when i read this - I was Pissed as a newt..
Strange in a world where we breed animals to eat their flesh and wear their skin that we should get upset over such things.