Don't forget medical care

Many dogs and cats live happily. Furthermore, like many people have already said, both of them are very domestic species at this point, so, if we freed them one day, what are they suppose to do? They could go to the forests and live as they wish, but I'm pretty sure a lot of them would remain inside the cities, living with worse sanitary conditions than they are doing right now with the proper care of many owners.

All my pets live in the wild, yo. 

Part of the bunker's roof collapsed a while back, so we've converted it to an open-ceilinged aviary.  Some of the birds hop onto my finger or shoulder if I whistle; not because they must but because they choose to.  A number of animals come here for sanctuary when a bad storm hits, and some of them have taken a liking to my family and the Project.  They come and go as they please, taught a few of them tricks, and a bunch respond to various verbal prompts.  Oh yeah, and then there's the family of dolphins that bonded with us after we rescued one.

None are captive.  None are denied their own lives.  All choose and acquire their own food.  They do what they want whenever they want and we don't interfere with their breeding. 

There wouldn't be any dogs or domestic cats if it weren't for humans...

I'm not, society is.  Just look at your common pet store and their 'selective' pets. 

I think raccoons are cool but probably not everybody thinks so and likely wont see them at a pet store.

What I find more 'morally reprehensible' are people going around, trying to find new things to find 'morally reprehensible'. This overload of PC bullshit is going to end up having an opposite effect because you can only squeeze someone's life so far. At some people, people are going to go "fuck it" and just live their lives the way they want to.

How about mentally challenged individuals who can't feed themselves or take care of themselves at all? They are still human after all and can be pretty much compared to that of a pet due to the inoperability of taking care of ones self.

I think it is justified to have pets so long as they are comfortable and happy in their environment, isn't that the whole purpose of life, leisure and happiness? It can't be morally wrong to feed, nurture, and bathe an animal that you are caring for.

I like these types of questions though, they question what we normally view as being OK.

You must be very bored today.

Hmm. You know, I say we hijack this thread and turn it into a more interesting discussion: if an individual has a higher quality of life and enjoys life more and prefers to be a slave, is it then unethical to have that individual as a slave?

I would like to apologize for sheltering an animal from the diseases and predators that would consume them in the wild, as well as offering them companionship and food that doesn't need to be hunted down first. It was morally reprehensible to treat an animal like a member of my family.