I've had both my entire life, but my heart is in cats. They all are just so different personality wise. My current cat, Holiday, is hood af. She'll bat you away if you try to give her scritches unless she asked for them specifically, and she just let me scratch her belly despite being rescued by me when she was about 2 weeks old, and being nurses back to health from the brink of death. I love that smarmy shithead and her cute beans.
I think this is more of a problem with capitalism, than a problem with breeding being fundamentally wrong, we're incentivized to breed as poorly as possible, it's a race to the bottom.
That being said, I think some animals are bred pretty carefully, definitely not dogs and cats, but certain insect breeding operations are pretty ethical just because being ethical with them is insanely easy.
Certain animals don't really roam as part of their lifestyle, most tarantulas are ambush predators, if you put a tarantula into a hole and regularly give it food, it doesn't dream of the outside world where it can roam freely, roaming freely is its worst nightmare because that's how it gets exposed to predators... tarantulas find a hole where they constantly get food and you can presume based on how they live in the wild that they've found the best hole ever.
They also show clear signs of stress when they are stressed, and they show less of those in captivity than in the wild.
It can be case by case for animals of the same type even. One of my cats is legit scared of outside and has no interest in leaving the house for any reason. The other cat is hesitantly curious so sometimes we bring him out on a lead. He never wants to wander further than a few feet though even if we prompt him to explore. They live good lives and feel safe neither really feels the need to roam far as I can tell.
The reason is that many people around here don’t handle their dogs well. That results in noise (hysterical barks in some cases) and poo landmines you have to watch out for.
Well-trained dogs? Appreciate them. Dogs I personally know? Good boys! Random dogs from the neighborhood? No thanks.
Having owned both, cats and dogs are quite different, and great in their own right. Dogs as a trusty companion, cats as a peculiar room mate.
Cats are the mascot of the Internet. I love dogs too, but they require a lot of maintenance and attention compared to cats. Cats are the most arrogant creatures on Earth, and maybe the only ones that 'truly' live out their philosophy of life; of, "I'm better than you, and I know it."
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