Three-time Olympic dressage gold medallist Charlotte Dujardin banned for one-year and fined £8,886 for "excessively" whipping a horse.
Sticking in politics because aren't we at a point where we should be discussing banning animal slavery? Pay Boston Dynamics and they'll provide perfectly good working robot horses for sport.
So, I've been doing the vegan thing for about 5 years now (yes I just had to tell you about it), and one thing that I still struggle with morally is pet ownership. If a cat needed rescuing because they were previously captive and now don't have a home, then sure, I guess, but then I wonder like, how much am I, even by way of rescuing a cat, just going back to contributing the barbaric meat industry? (Not contributing to it was arguably the point of going vegan) How many cows/chicken/sheep/fish need to die to keep this cat alive? And why do I value this cat so much more highly than all those other animals?
Is pet ownership animal exploitation/slavery? I don't really know. If we're talking about a horse where you ride around on its back and hit it with whips I'd argue definitely yes, but like, a dog or a cat? I dunno.
I do love dogs and cats though and feel that our experiences on this planet are very much enriched by them being around, so I'm certainly not advocating for a ban on pet ownership, not right now anyway.
Maybe I should be posting this in a philosophy sub.