Do you like to play with animals? Cuddle them or keep them as pets?
Keeping pets is a common practice all over the world, but people disagree on whether it is really good for animals. Keeping pets is a good idea when owners act responsibly and respect animals. However, serious problems can emerge when people keep pets only for profit or entertainment.
Why Keep pets?
On one hand, there are strong arguments in favour of keeping pets. To begin with, pets allow people to care and have experience with injured, homeless, or abandoned animals by giving them food, medical treatment, and a safe shelter. Such experiences benefit both the animals and humans and make for an inclusive society where humans learn to care for more than their own race. In addition, many studies show that pets provide companionship and emotional support, which can reduce stress, anxiety, and loneliness for their owners. Pets can also help people with physical disabilities, for example, guide-dogs that assist blind people or parrots that help with speech problems. Therefore, if animals are treated kindly, pet ownership can benefit both humans and the animals concerned.
Downside of Keeping Pets
On the other hand, keeping pets can create serious ethical and practical problems. Some owners exploit animals by cutting parts of their bodies for cosmetic reasons, such as ear cropping or tail docking. Even extreme breeding done by certain owners to produce unique animals and achieve fashionable looks can cause severe health problems. In many places, pet animals may be killed for their meat, fur or skin, which raises questions about cruelty and unnecessary suffering. Furthermore, social media encourages people to use pets as props to gain attention, sometimes forcing them into uncomfortable clothes, dangerous tricks or stressful situations, just to make videos. Apart from ethical issues, pets can also cause everyday difficulties such as shedding hair everywhere in the house and being expensive to feed, vaccinate and treat at the vet.
In conclusion, keeping pets is a personal choice. Pet ownership has clear benefits as it encourages rescuing animals from endangered situations and supports physical and mental well-being of humans. But, it also involves serious risks of cruelty and exploitation if owners are irresponsible. Overall, I would say that keeping pets is a good idea, but only when people are educated about animal welfare and are willing to spend time and money to care for them properly.
Writer : Aanya Jain
Grade : 5 (Year 2025)
Place : Virginia, USA
