"You don't have to own squirrels and starlings to get enjoyment from them. ... One day we would like an end to pet shops and the breeding of animals. [Dogs] would pursue their natural lives in the wild ... they would have full lives, not waiting at home for someone to come home in the evening and pet them and then sit there and watch TV"
Ingrid Newkirk, co-founder, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), in "Where Would We Be Without Animals?", Chicago Daily Herald, Mar. 1, 1990.

"I don't use the word 'pet.' I think it's specieist language. I prefer 'companion animal.' For one thing, we would no longer allow breeding ... as the surplus of cats and dogs declined, eventually companion animals would be phased out, and we would return to a more symbiotic relationship - enjoyment at a distance."
Ingrid Newkirk, co-founder, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), in "Just Like Us? Toward a Notion of Animal Rights", Harper's Magazine, August 1988.

"Pet ownership is an absolutely abysmal situation brought about by human manipulation."
Ingrid Newkirk, co-founder, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), in "Just Like Us? Toward a Notion of Animal Rights", Harper's Magazine, August 1988.

"In the end, I think it would be lovely if we stopped this whole notion of pets altogether."
Ingrid Newkirk, co-founder, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), Newsday, Feb. 21, 1988.

"Let us allow the dog to disappear from our brick and concrete jungles -- from our firesides, from the leather nooses and chains by which we enslave it."
John Bryant, Fettered Kingdoms: An Examination of A Changing Ethic, Washington, DC: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, 1982, p15.

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