I pledge never to eat the flesh of dogs and cats. I admit I'm a hypocrite because I still am not a full vegetarian i.e. I do eat several types of meats such as chicken, fish, prawn, pork and duck, so I don't want to sound like a goodie two shoe. Yet, dogs and cats are not natural meat sources to me, I was never brought up to see them as food, and this should stay the same till my end of life.
I further note that dogs and cats are carnivores in their own right, whereas to the bare minimum I am an omnivorous homo sapien, I don't wish to force sentient beings to do this or do that, instead I prefer to let nature take its own course. I confess that I have studied various religious teachings and I do not have a fixed solution to the question of carnivorous appetites. I'm not God, at best a Zazen student, I don't have a habit of challenging God as to why dogs and cats are created to be carnivores while cattle are usually herbivores, these are riddles in life which don't make sense to me. For me, I accept these questions as Zen koans and meditate on them without challenging God or Buddha.
Accepting reality as it is, I choose to coexist with my critter friends as my own existence withstands the test of time.
