I volunteered in a shelter with two of my girls at different times, for 18 years. Over population is the biggest problem, obviously. Spay and neuter is my mantra. Right now in my area, there are probably 2000 pit bulls that are homeless and in various shelters just here. It does make me mad that ignorant people would do this. The first thing I do with my pets is fix them.

I have also raised livestock for a good part of my life and one thing my father instilled in me is to respect the animals. He taught me the same thing about hunting, don't kill anything you don't eat. I have no problem with knowing that the animals are used for human consumption, as long as it is done humanly.

That being said, I know that vegans have it all wrong. There is a lot more going on with some of them than just wanting to eat a certain way for some mystical greater good of animals in general.

I have a friend who barely eats meat. She's chronically deficient in Iron. She also doesn't eat many vegetables, she just eats lots of carbs, pies, cakes instead of meals of meat and veggies. She has moments of memory lapses and she's told me about cognitive issues she is having.She even passed out at a carnival and attributed it to the heat and being dehydrated.
I tell her to eat more meat but she won't listen. I gave her an Atkins book but it fell on deaf ears.

I have also met many animal "rescuers" through the years. Sorry to say that I found many of them to be animal hoarders who figured out a way to legitimize their affliction and elevate their behavior to the level of a savior. The last time I adopted a dog, the lady rescuer, at the last minute wanted to meet me at a Petsmart instead of her house. (she didn't want me to see the animals or conditions) So I ended up doing exactly what you are never supposed to do, which is what I told her, buying a puppy in a parking lot. I had driven a couple of hundred miles to get the pup and traded emails for weeks and I was ready for this pup to be paart of our family, so she got me. Then she told me she just had her fixed the day before by an unlicensed person on her kitchen table (I kid you not). When I got back with the pup, I went straight to the vet because the incision was already getting infected. This lady has a web-site, she does pet adoptions at pet marts with her group, I was referred to her, she was supposed to be legit and that's what I ended up with.

It's hard to say what drives these people, maybe it's some sense of belonging to a group of like minded people, however misguided they are, IDK but I definitely know that being deficient in B-12 isn't helping the vegans think clearly.