I completely agree. It always breaks my heart to see locked up animals, be it a cat not allowed to go outside, a dog confined in an appartement with only one outing a day in the urban concrete or a bear in a cage in a zoo. Makes no difference to me.

I firmly believe animal rights movements should discourage pet owning but it's often the other way around, at least from where i'm from.

Discouraging pet ownership, while I agree with it, would put you into an extremely fringe category akin to advocating veganism. The world just isn't ready for that level of compassion for animals. We still live in cultures where five minutes of pleasure for our taste buds trumps all ethical concerns.

It's extremely socially acceptable to get two dogs in your tiny apartment and keep them in kennels while you're at work for 9 hours, and again for 9 hours overnight. People will even come out of the woodwork to convince you that the dogs actually prefer that.

I also think we need to dial back breeding. Breeders just dump unwanted animals into street/pound circulation while breeding the most gimped animals (purebreds) out there, the last thing we need.

I don't discourage pet ownership, in fact I think it's an extremely positive thing for many reasons. I do encourage making responsible choices when it comes to pet selection.

I can agree wholeheartedly for animals that are raised by breeders, and honestly I think this practice should end; there are already more animals than people want to home. but rescue cats already exist before they are adopted. the question is not "can I provide an ideal life for this animal?" but rather, "can I offer an improvement over living in a shelter and eventual euthanasia?".

This mirrors a lot of rhetoric that you might but want it to.