Expert: Joe McSorley - 12/27/2007

Question
Hello. I'm a vegetarian and sometimes it seems hypocritical for me to buy pet food for my cats and dogs. The pets I have are "rescues" and would have most likely died if I didn't take them or find them a home. I see that I am choosing for a cat or dog to live and many chickens to die for my own enjoyment of their companionship. I also see that cats eat birds in nature and I have no control over they food they are designed to eat. Is there bad karma involved in having pets and buying their food? Also, do you believe there is a level of suffering that it is okay to euthanize an animal?

Answer
Dear  Shelley,
  If you ask several different Buddhists this question you will most likely get several different answers according to their beliefs.  We stand outside of nature and then make judgments on what we think is right for nature and on what we judge is good or bad.  Schools will argue that karma is based on different things but I maintain that it is best understood as cause and effect.  Many years ago a friend of mine who was a strict vegetarian decided that he could no longer feed his dogs meat.  He made this judgment standing apart from nature.  For months he gave his dogs several concoctions all designed to fulfill their natural needs.  Within 6 months his dogs were ill and losing their hair, they were going to die.  Dogs are not vegetarians and there is nothing sinful about them eating meat.  Within a month of giving them meat their health returned.  What is out of balance here is the way we produce the food for the pets. We judge what is right and wrong because we are removed from nature and trying to figure it out.  All life feeds off other life, it is neither good nor bad, it is just how nature is.  Cows and deer slaughter grass while fox and hawks slaughter rabbits.  Fish kill fish and algae and bacteria feed on one another.  This is the way of nature.  What is death for one species is life for another.  All nature favors its own species.  The dog will eat the chicken without concern.  It would not sacrifice its life to save a chicken. The chickens will wipe out the grubs in their search for food. Nature balances itself out with this living/dying play.  We humans stand outside of nature and destroy the balance by taking over nature and bending it to our own desires resulting in the ecological problems of the world today.  Eventually we will be gone and nature will restore its balance.  This is all cause and effect, karma.  There is not a good karma and a bad karma as it will always seek a balance in nature eventually.  You are not racking up points on your soul for some future moment.  The karma of not taking care of the animals is an explosion in feral cats destroying our songbird population or the dogs roaming the streets.  Feed your pets responsibly and you are fine.
   In nature animals do not have the long luxurious lives they have as pets.  As soon as an animal weakens in nature it is prey for another animal.  They do not get old and fat and wander through the forest, they are hunted and used in the cycle of nature, not good or bad, it’s just what nature is.  It is unnatural for an animal to live as long as they do when domesticated, is that bad karma?  It is unusual for an animal to be long suffering in nature because another will kill it as soon as it weakens.  For you to euthanize it is compassion not bad karma.  It would have died far sooner in the natural order of things.

   I hope this has helped you.  Take care,
            Joe