Pets: are they really your companions or prisoners?

do you own a pet? i do, i once had:

• 2 sugar gliders
• 8 hedgehogs
• 2 hermit crabs
• 2 hamsters
• 2 dogs

living in the same house at 1 moment, look like noah's ark, no? anyway, it just got me thinking...we keep these animals for companionship (at least i do), but what abt the animals? do they feel like part of the family voluntarily or do they feel they are prisoners? (as we're keeping them in cages, and they rely on us for food)

well, u can argue that animals dont have higher minds so they will just wander away if we turn them loose. they want to come back to us, but they dont know how. thats true for smaller sized animals and we give them good lives (albeit caged with the occassional prison break and walks).

i for one, know for a fact that when i turn my dog loose, she doesnt go galloping away, when i call her, she comes back to me, now thats a pet who wants to be with you. my sugar gliders werent really pets, i bred them, they were wild, could not be domesticated and not surprisingly, they ran away.

so are your animals pets or prisoners? are they waiting for the opportunity to be free from you, or are they waiting eagerly for you to come home to spend some time together?