Topic80:Should pets be treated like family members?


Topic80: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Pets should be treated like family members.


Some people may think that human beings do not need to regard pets as family members. However, I do not go along with this opinion, and rather I think that it is better for people who have pets to treat them like family members. For one thing, people have responsibility for raising pets. In addition, regarding pets as family members enhaces the correlation of the owner and the pet.

First of all, people who have pets have an obligation about raising them. Pets are different from wild animals. I think that human beings who have pets have to have responsibility for cherish them while they live. That is to say, not only people provide pets with food every day and bring them in a hospital if they are sick but also people have to esteem highly pets. This is because having pets is result from their deciding to have pets. Because people, in general, decide it with their willness, people have responsibility for cherishing pets. Moreover, I think that pets are animals, and animals are equivalent to human beings because both animals and human beings are terrestrial creatures. So, people have to make much of pets too as if people do children and babies. Therefore, if people look down on pets just by reason of animals, I disagree with the statement from ethical and moral point of view.

Next, cherishing pets like family members affects the owner and the pet better than regarding them just as animals. For instance, my grandmother had a cat a few years ago. Because she has lived alone then, she specially raised the cat with affection. Therefore, the cat largely became attached to her, which also made my grandmother happier. For her, the cat was entirely a member of her family, and her affection for the cat contributed to enhance the bond of her and the cat.

To sum up, owners of pets had better esteem pets like family members. Having pets cause owners to have responsibility for pets, and good correlation among owners and pets depend on owners’ attitudes.

TOEFL listening lectures: What aspect of Ben Franklin’s life does the speaker mainly discuss?