Brace yourself for this one..
The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has been making a lot of noise in the media recently and they're doing it once again.
Now PETA claims we as dog and cat owners have been referring to our pets all wrong by calling them pets..
The Senior Media Officer at PETA, Jennifer White, was recently on the show Good Morning Britain and talked about the term "pet" as a derogatory term and it patronizes the animal.
As Jennifer says in the interview, "A lot of people at home who have dogs and cats, they will call these animals pets, and they will refer to themselves as an owner. This implies that the animals are a possession."
With the use of social media, Jennifer's comments have erupted like a fire storm with a lot of backlash.
PETA's founder and president, Ingrid Newkirk, took to the media to defend the statement and further explained the organization's stance to Fox News.
"Referring to an animal as a 'pet' or as 'it' reduces a sentient being with a personality and emotions to an inanimate object—a possession to be used in any way the 'owner' wishes. Contrary to some reports, we are not seeking to ban these words; we're simply suggesting that it would be more respectful to refer to the animals in our homes as 'animal companions' and ourselves as their 'guardians' in the same way that all social movements concerned with cultivating respect have made appeals to stop using terms that are racist or sexist or that otherwise imply that the subject is less important than the speaker."
Does it really matter what you call your fur baby as long as you take the best care of them and spoil them rotten with love?
