My Irish Great-Grandmother was permitted to remain in a room of our family home when the Germans occupied it during WW2. The allies blockaded the island just before the end of the war, and everyone was running out of food including the Germans. They took to eating pets including cats. When they wanted to eat my grandmother's moggie she somehow managed to convince them that as an Irish citizen she and her cat were exempt. Strangely enough they left it alone!

I would have no hesitation in eating pets if our family were starving. If you eat cows, sheep, pigs etc, there is no real difference in eating cats and dogs is there? Over here people don't eat horse meat as a rule finding the idea distasteful, but in France they don't have a problem with it.

My father had a Chinese labourer working on our property in the 60s, she said they used to eat cats, dogs and rats in China.