My pets kill animals is it going against the Rede?

Question

My 2 Dogs and 2 Cats both like to kill animals like chipmunks and rabbits. Is that my fault and going against the Wiccan Rede because I didnt teach them it was wrong

Answer 1

I dont think it has anything to do with the Rede... if you dont teach an animal that the behavior is wrong, they will continue to do it.

Answer 2

The Rede doesn't say Harm None....and animals aren't Wiccans, anyways.

If your tradition taught you this, find a new one. If your coven taught you this, find a new one, if you are a solitary and atraditional, find a coven and/or a tradition because going it alone does not work for you.

I'm not trying to be mean, seriously.

Try this essay for a start:
http://www.paganlibrary.com/ethics/wiccan_ethics_rede.php
Then RUN, don't walk, away from Wiccans who claim the Rede says harm none.

Here's another:
http://wicca.timerift.net/rede.shtml

Answer 3

How exactly are you supposed to teach an animal to hold to an abstract human concept???

Your dogs and cats are fully acting within their nature, as they are meant to act. They are hunters; just because we domesticated them and feed them, it doesn't make them any less the predator they truly are. Look what happened to Sigfried several years back - he forgot that no matter how tame his trained tigers seemed, they are still wild animals at heart and by nature. So are your pets

Obviously you also don't know the full of the rede - which states - "an it harm none, do as you will. An if harm comes, do what you must."

Harm none is an impossible concept. If you punish your pets for acting as their nature dictates, you are doing great harm. Merely by living and breathing, each of us inadvertantly does harm to something somewhere.

best you can do is midigate that harm by living thoughtfully, and realizing that not everything - or everyone's- nature is the same as yours. That especially goes for your pets.

Answer 4

It is not against the Rede. They are not killing for fun or sport. They are killing because of instinct. You didn't say if they eat them or not. It is not their fault that they may not know what to do with the prey after they've killed it. If they bring the remains (or some of the remains) to you, that is also instinct. They see you as a member of their pack or pride and want to include you.

Answer 5

That's what makes them animal's, but they can learn not to do it - which I believe is something that help's their spirits grow.

In my opinion if you have a pet then its your responsibility to make sure it doesnt kill, otherwise since its in your care you are responsible for any killing it does. So yes, it would be against the Rede for that reason and accumulate related energies as a result.

Answer 6

Animals kill out of instinct and you cant change an animals instincts so it is not against the Rede.

Answer 7

What is the Wiccan Rede? No, as your cats and dogs are carnivores.

Answer 8

You can not teach natural carnivorous hunters like dogs and cats that hunting is wrong!

You are attempting to project human attributes and morals onto other species!

As a Wicca, don't you attempt to work in harmony with nature?

So why try to pervert (or at the very least subvert) the very nature of dogs and cats?
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Answer 9

Dangers of the Wiccan Rede

From The book 'Shadows of a Witch, For the Witch that Seeks Balance and Truth' © Shewolf Silver Shadows 2003

How can there be dangers with the Wiccan Rede when it stipulates ‘Harm None’? The dangers come when the Rede is taken literally, and not just at face value. You see - all too often I have seen Wiccans that take the Rede to the extreme and try to truly harm none, not a single living thing. They do not realize that in trying to adhere diligently to the law of harm none they are essentially hurting themselves, and that is still breaking the law of harm none.

For a time a span of about five or six years I was devoutly Wiccan, and the rede was a powerful thing in my own life. I did not want to harm a bug in my home, or a mosquito that landed on anything or me! Well, today I am a lot more practical; the real law is survival of the fittest, live and let live true but use your brain. It takes life to sustain life and that is a reality, an honest fact.


I also see Wiccans converting and becoming vegetarians so that they will – harm none? Do they not realize that a vegetable is alive and that to harvest it and eat a vegetable is just as harmful has sending a cow to the slaughterhouse? Do they think that vegetables are not harmed? Or do those that carry the rede to this extent not realize that life, all life is valuable and precious. Are they saying that the life of a cow is more valuable then the life of a vegetable? Personally yes, I do think that a life of a cow or a human is more valuable then that of a vegetable on many levels, not just because a human would scream louder then a vegetable when killed, but because of the level of conscience in the human or a cow. But then again, scientist may not have yet proved that plants can think or feel, but does that mean that they can not? Just because a vegetable does not scream out so we can hear does it mean that they do not feel pain? I personally am not sure, but what I am sure of is that ALL life is precious and valuable, all life.


I am not saying do not eat because you have to cause harm to plant and animal alike what I am saying is use your head here. I believe in the cycle of life, the circle of life. We are born, we live, we die, and in the living others must die to sustain us, again, survival of the fittest. The bird eats the bug, the cat eats the bird, and a larger animal like a wolf eats the cat. Eventually the wolf dies and then guess what eats the wolf – many bugs and such, even birds and the cycle of life starts all over. We have to eat for nourishment, we have to protect ourselves from harm, not just try not to cause harm.

If someone breaks into your home and physically threatens to harm you or someone you love, are you going to adhere to the Wiccan Rede? Are you going to be killed or watch a loved one harmed just because you do not wish to break the Wiccan law? I can not speak for you, but for myself I will say this, I will protect me and mine in any and every way I can even if that means I have to harm another to protect us. I will also place food on our table for nourishment, for my family and myself to live a healthy life.


Do you understand what I am trying to convey here? No, I do not like to harm bugs, and if I can, I will capture them and take them out of my home instead of kill them. When I was around five months pregnant a beautiful black snake came into my home, I had left the back door open, do you think I killed that snake? No, I caught it and placed it in a bucket. Now I did not catch it like I used to when I was a girl, I mean I was pregnant, and I would not endanger my child for anything! So I used a golf club and scooped it under the snake and placed its squiggling butt in the bucket! Later that day I drove to my dad’s house in the country and let that snake go back into nature.


I was bitten by a Brown Recluse spider before, nasty business. So I don’t care much at all for spiders, but they have a place in the scheme of things and are important, however I will not let a big spider crawl on me and bite me either; I will kill it in self protection and in almost an instinctive manner. But if that same spider heads off in a different direction from me, I will not bother it. Same with a snake, if I come a cross a snake, I am not going to harm it before it harms me, I will pay attention, and if the snake means me no harm and we can both go our own ways, I will not harm it. But if I am in a situation where I am threatened by that snake and it could be dangerous, I am sorry that and me would have a go round, and yes, someone or thing would be harmed.


I do not purchase or harvest more then is needed for my family to survive healthily and happily on. And yes I do value and respect the life of the vegetable, the fruit or the meat of the animal that gave its life so that it might help provide nourishment and maintain the life and good health of my family and self.


I think maybe when the Wiccan Rede was conceived that it was not created to be taken so literally, but only in general. By this I mean that you should not cause harm just for the sake of harming, but that harm should befall none unless it is to preserve your own life and that of your loved ones as well. Also that all life should be appreciated and respected as important, sacred even, and should that we should be grateful for the life forces that sacrifice their lives for us to survive, food and nutrition wise.

I see the Rede in many ways as I do the Christian Ten Commandments... as a guideline... an outline of sorts. But the bottom line is that to sustain life, life must be sacrificed. It is so in nature, and we as humans, are part of that chain of life.
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You are not responsible for the actions of anyone or thing but yourself. Meaning what your cat's or dogs do... you are not responsible for spiritually. Legally that may be another matter.

The fact is that it is natural for animals to kill other animals.

Hope this helped some.

Answer 10

I am not sure what "Rede" is.
But what they are doing is natural instinct.
You cannot be at fault for allowing them to do what comes natural to them.