Friends that don't agree with owning pets

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Bellaboo18

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So we've got some good friends that I've known since school, it's nice because we get on well as a 4 (my husband gets on well with her husband).
Anyway 2 years ago they became vegetarian a bit later vegan. Absolutely fine, live and let live plus I'm vegetarian anyway. The latest news is they don't agree with owning pets... now I still think fine everyone is welcome to their own views but I'm left with this strange feeling.
Basically my whole life revolves around my animals, the horses and my dog. I suppose I feel it's strange having friends that disagree with my whole lifestyle so much. Thoughts?

Probably important to add although I don't feel they 'preach' about their views, they have a passive aggressive way of glancing at each other or nudging each other when something is mentioned that they don't agree with. Unfortunately for them I mention horses alot :/
 
Bellaboo18 said:
Well it's sad but I can imagine it getting that way. It's just strange because they never were judgy...but I suppose people do change.
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The acid test is whether they make you feel good about yourself when you see them - or not. If the latter, it's time to let the friendship fade.
 
If we could all agree to disagree we could all get on a lot easier.

Your friends are on a new path of veganism and having many vegan contacts in my life and animal rights exposure, the keeping of all pets is also a strong ‘no,no’, for various reasons, some rational, others extreme.

They are being socially rude and insensitive to now gesture their disapproval at your lifestyle that theyve been ‘fine’ with for years, until they turned vegan. Theyre now projecting their beliefs onto you and making you feel awkward, understandably. Horrible to project like this to try to make you feel guilty for your life choices.

Ive had discussions with a staunch vegan pal ive known since school, over 27yrs, who is extremely judgemental of everyone’s food/animal choices, despite me having been vegan at one time for 6yrs, but i laid it on the line once after being judged what i eat by saying my right to make my own choices, my intention is not to cause harm to man nor beast, and he has no right to judge me, as i dont him. He can be my friend and accept me without the degrading quips or he can find other pals who align with his ideals, and to stop expecting me to follow his beliefs. We resumed friendship wonderfully and he finally got over that i make different food choices to himself.

Sometimes you gotta lay it on the line with people so the social cut the air with a knife experiences stop occurring.

Simply they have a choice to accept you as you are, like theyve managed all these years or find new friends.
 
Bellaboo18 said:
So we've got some good friends that I've known since school, it's nice because we get on well as a 4 (my husband gets on well with her husband).
Anyway 2 years ago they became vegetarian a bit later vegan. Absolutely fine, live and let live plus I'm vegetarian anyway. The latest news is they don't agree with owning pets... now I still think fine everyone is welcome to their own views but I'm left with this strange feeling.
Basically my whole life revolves around my animals, the horses and my dog. I suppose I feel it's strange having friends that disagree with my whole lifestyle so much. Thoughts?

Probably important to add although I don't feel they 'preach' about their views, they have a passive aggressive way of glancing at each other or nudging each other when something is mentioned that they don't agree with. Unfortunately for them I mention horses alot :/
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See, I think there is something wrong with people that don't have pets but I keep it to myself :p
 
meleeka said:
Gosh that is a funny view of things. Presumably in that case they want dogs, cats, etc to be extinct?
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Its more a view based on all animals should be wild in nature and humans should not interfere in any way, no farming them for anything, no having them for ‘our pleasure’ as pets. Putting our pleasure above the animals real needs.

Some vegans adore animals and have a lot of animal pets, while the other camp of vegans dont have a ‘love’ of animals, they dont have a natural propensity for fussing an animal, handling one and have no idea how to care for them.

My vegan pal thought chicken farming was cruel as he thought chickens were forced somehow to lay eggs. I explained having reared chickens free range as a kid that there’s no way a person can force a chicken to lay an egg!! He was genuinly shocked. I explained the cruelty behind a lot of battery farms are the insane cramped conditions, having myself rehomed many from such farms who were pretty much bald due to being so cramped.
 
Bellaboo18 said:
They think very idealistically and feel animals should just be running around in the wild. I said I didn't think my thoroughbred would cope very well but then tried to enjoy the rest of the evening...
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If they are being judgemental then that’s not on but at least they are being consistent in their beliefs. I know several vegans who are quite happy keeping pets and driving cars with leather seats. Then there’s the vegans who feed their dogs a vegan diet which is detrimental to the dog but they seem okay with that.
 
Cobgobblegobble said:
So, Erm, as they are critical of you keeping pets.. What do they want you to do with them?
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Abi90 said:
If they are being judgemental then that’s not on but at least they are being consistent in their beliefs. I know several vegans who are quite happy keeping pets and driving cars with leather seats. Then there’s the vegans who feed their dogs a vegan diet which is detrimental to the dog but they seem okay with that.
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So this is probably a good time to add, they have a dog but as this is a new believe they will keep her but not have another. She is fed on a vegan diet.
 
So it's ok for them to impose their views on a naturally omnivorous animals that just happens to have had the misfortune to be owned by them before they decided to have a change of stance..... Not sure I could cope with socialising with people so far from my own set of ethics. I imagine their intentions are of the very highest but there's a real lack of consistency as regards their dogs welfare!
 
stormox said:
I think you should enjoy their friendship but just don't talk about your pets if it causes aggro. I try to avoid talking about religion or politics with certain of my friends.
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I just wonder if this is easier said than done. A simple what have you been up to today? I must be sad but it will always have involved horses and dogs. We do avoid talking about politics as we have opposite points of view, this hasn't ever caused a problem even though that's a huge part of OHs life. I suppose I'm wondering if we're running out of common ground.
 
Bellaboo18 said:
So this is probably a good time to add, they have a dog but as this is a new believe they will keep her but not have another. She is fed on a vegan diet.
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oh great they are the worst type of person then judgemental and hypocritical! I would not make any concerted effort to keep seeing them but be friendly if you bump into them. Feeding a dog a vegan diet is just cruel
 
Life moves on - and so must we - especially if friends take such divergent paths that general social interaction becomes impossible or fraught with such tension it becomes destructive. I am afraid that domestication of some animals has gone beyond a return to the wild and we are responsible for what we have created.
 
Bellaboo18 said:
So this is probably a good time to add, they have a dog but as this is a new believe they will keep her but not have another. She is fed on a vegan diet.
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Poor dog. :(

I hope she doesn't feel as if she is there on sufferance.

I saw a clip recently, I think it was Eamonn Holmes, with a woman on the show who insisted that her dog preferred a vegetarian diet. The dog was presented with a bowl of veggies and a bowl of meat. No prizes for guessing what the dog ate ravenously, barely glanced at the veg. :D
 
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Their views just don’t add up. They think all animals should be wild but they don’t need to eat each other? (presumably they don’t agree with rescues, Rspca, etc?) They think we only keep pets for our own pleasure. This is very silly. Does anyone else think that their pets get as much pleasure from being cared for as we do from having them around?

Their poor dogs needs are obviously not important to them so I’d put them in the same category as people who don’t like animals, and not someone I’d bother being friends with.
 
I don't mind people being vegetarian or vegan as long as they don't force those views on me. I worked with a vegan woman who was cool and explained that she wore leather because she couldn't afford to throw out all of her clothes from before she became vegan. On the other hand I worked with a vegetarian who was a real pain in the rear. She waved PeTA magazines in my face and made snotty comments when I would have some meat at lunch.
Personally, as far as your friends go, do you really need such negativity in your life?
 
meleeka said:
Their views just don’t add up. They think all animals should be wild but they don’t need to eat each other? (presumably they don’t agree with rescues, Rspca, etc?) They think we only keep pets for our own pleasure. This is very silly. Does anyone else think that their pets get as much pleasure from being cared for as we do from having them around?

Their poor dogs needs are obviously not important to them so I’d put them in the same category as people who don’t like animals, and not someone I’d bother being friends with.
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I agree, animals can give us so much but we can give them so much in return.
After reading the replies I'm even more concerned about the dog.
 
Trouper said:
Life moves on - and so must we - especially if friends take such divergent paths that general social interaction becomes impossible or fraught with such tension it becomes destructive. I am afraid that domestication of some animals has gone beyond a return to the wild and we are responsible for what we have created.
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This is my view regarding domesticated animals.
 
I do not know the age group of you or your friends so I am trying not to assume anything here. But it does occur to me that in our late 20s and 30s my OH and I probably slowly moved away from about 75 per cent of our friend group ( a mutual and gradual occurrence between our friend group and ourselves) and moved on to other newer friends that fitted more with our changing lifestyle and beliefs.

I think this is probably pretty much a natural and normal thing when most friends we had in our teens and mid twenties moved on to their chosen path and we moved on to ours, picking up new friends along the way. Childhood friends who are still our good friends now always had and kept the same interest as we did, mostly all animals and horse owner/lovers.

I do think they are being pretty rude though with glances and nudges etc. They would have been shown the door long since in this household lol!
 
Some people get really, really odd/judgemental/plain nasty when they go vegan. As they are a vegan couple they will be egging each other on and are likely to become insufferable.

I'd ditch them. I'd probably have got up and left/asked them to leave at the first bit of bloody nudging and sideeye between them. Cheeky f88kers. No time for that kind of nonsense quite frankly.
 
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