Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters
At the end of last year, the state of New York banned pet stores from selling cats, dogs, or rabbits. The state wants to encourage pet stores to work with shelters, rather than puppy mills, to get animals adopted. With any luck, other states will follow suit.
In her story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, Ursula Le Guin described a society where the joy of its citizens depended upon the “abominable misery” of a single child immured in a dungeon. Le Guin asked the reader if even great happiness could justify suffering. Humanity’s relationship to animals is predicated on a similar utilitarian calculus. Like the town of Omelas, we have made a silent pact to dominate pets for our benefit, despite the cost to the pets themselves, to wild and farmed animals, and to our own morality.
