http://doglawsatlarge.blogspot.com/2007/12/pet-puppies-and-show-breeders.html
Friday, December 21, 2007
Pet Puppies and Show Breeders
I feel this is a very good summary of how the AR
movement has evolved. Thank you Sharyn for
writing this.
Pet Puppies and Show Breeders
So is there no alternative to having dogs raised
commercially in long rows of cages and sold at
pet stores?
Yes, there is but it will take some major
turning around in show breeders' thinking and
not many of us are brave enough to stick our
necks out and do it. Our ingrained "good
breeder" beliefs are just too strong, but mostly
it is peer pressure that keeps us from changing.
Unfortunately we are going to lose our right to
breed at all before anyone decides it's worth
risking popularity to speak up.
How we got here: Before World War II, most
people had mixed breed dogs because purebreds
were just too expensive. No problem finding a
puppy because spay/neuter was rare and there
were lots of all kinds of pups to be had. As the
sixties rolled around, in fact, whole litters
were being euthanized at dog pounds because
there were few leash laws -- dogs roamed around
the neighborhood looking for love -- and no
spaying. I was nine in 1960 and one of the joys
of my life was the variety of dogs wandering
around for me to play with. The dark side was
that our neighbors' dogs sometimes had puppies
that occasionally mysteriously disappeared
around six weeks old with some mumblings from
the adults about shelters and finding good
homes. The truth was most, if not all, of them
were euthanized. There were too many puppies for
the homes available. That is pet overpopulation
and we still have it in cats.
Around this same time, people were getting more
affluent and the price of purebreds was coming
down. The government had encouraged the
commercial breeding of dogs as an economic
measure and suddenly the ads in the paper were
not only for Shepherd mixes, but for "German
Shepherd puppies, $50." (One of those,
incidentally, was my first purebred dog. when I
was 16) So now families who had bought purebreds
often bred a litter or two for extra income or
just for the experience of having pups. And
purebred puppies began entering the pound for
euthanasia as well. That was pet overpopulation
too. Too many puppies for the homes available.
Enter the various humane societies and the
spay/neuter campaigns -- unarguably much needed
to curb the overpopulation and stop needless
euthanasia. Shelter euthanasia dropped 70
percent between 1970 and 1990 and has continued
to drop since then. In the late '80s and '90s,
good breeders also added spay/neuter contracts
to their puppy sales, further reducing the
number of unwanted litters. It gradually became
unfashionable to allow your dog to have puppies
unless you were a show or working dog breeder.
"Nice people" just didn't allow their dogs to
contribute to pet overpopulation. We breeders
went it one better and started being seriously
nasty (or at least condescending) to anyone
expressing an interest in breeding and once the
internet got going, all a person had to do was
mention to one breeder that she MIGHT be
interested in breeding, and there was a Do Not
Adopt circulated throughout the breed lists.
That person would play hell getting a puppy from
a show breeder after that.
In the early '90s, perhaps a bit earlier, two
things happened in the humane movement. Some of
the organizations realized that without an
overpopulation crisis, they didn't have a
message to use to collect donations which were
needed to pay the staff. But they didn't declare
success and shut down. Ever known an
organization to do that? Even the March of Dimes
moved from polio to other birth defects when the
polio vaccine ended their original crisis. No,
they continued to scream "OVERPOPULATION" and
they began to ease into a more radical movement
called animal rights.
The animal rights philosophy is summarized on
PETA's website as "animals have rights and
deserve to have their best interests taken into
consideration, regardless of whether they are
useful to humans. Like you, they are capable of
suffering and have an interest in leading their
own lives; therefore, they are not ours to use —
for food, clothing, entertainment,
experimentation, or any other reason." It's the
last part of that that will end our right to
breed them. The ARs will deny this on the phone
(no one would send them money if they admitted
it!), but if you dig deeply enough, you will
find that, yes, they DO believe no one should
keep pets.
"Pet ownership is an absolutely abysmal
situation brought about by human manipulation."
Ingrid Newkirk, national director, People for
the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), Just
Like Us? Harper's, August 1988, p. 50.
"In a perfect world, all other than human
animals would be free of human interference, and
dogs and cats would be part of the ecological
scheme." PeTA's Statement on Companion Animals
"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 wasting at home for someone
to come home in the evening and pet them and
then sit there and watch TV," Ingrid Newkirk,
national director, People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PeTA), Chicago Daily
Herald, March 1, 1990
PETA's "No Birth Nation" program is not a
moratorium on breeding. It is an END to it. So
where will pets come from? Hmmmm. Think about
that when you call them for information. Heck NO
they are not going to admit it in so many words.
(some of the people who work there may not even
know it, and for sure most of the people who
send them money don't know it) Who would donate
to an organization working to end pet ownership,
for heaven' s sake? PETA is not shy about saying
ALL breeders are bad. And if we all stop
breeding, WHERE WILL THE PETS COME FROM???
In the '80s HSUS was still a "good guy," but
during the last couple of decades of the 20th
century, it was slowly infiltrated by the
extremists, who quietly obtained board and high
level executive positions. There are still some
good people working for them, but when Wayne
Pacelle became president, the conversion was
complete. Now that is one organization that will
NEVER admit to wanting to end pet ownership, but
what else do these quotes from Wayne Pacelle
mean?
"We have no ethical obligation to preserve the
different breeds of livestock produced through
selective breeding. . One generation and out. We
have no problem with the extinction of domestic
animals. They are creations of human selective
breeding." Wayne Pacelle, Senior VP of Humane
Society of the US, formerly of Friends of
Animals and Fund for Animals, Animal People,
May, 1993
When asked if he envisioned a future without
pets, "If I had my personal view, perhaps that
might take hold. In fact, I don't want to see
another dog or cat born." Wayne Pacelle quoted
in Bloodties: Nature, Culture and the Hunt by
Ted Kerasote, 1993, p. 266.
As hard as it is for many of us to believe,
people LIE to achieve their goals. And those of
us who have worked in this arena for a few years
know for sure that animal rights advocates will
lie at the drop of a hat if they believe it will
help their Cause.
HSUS is not as radical as PETA. We call it "PETA
with a suit and tie." HSUS claims to support
"good" breeders, but they know well that there
are not enough non-commercial breeders to supply
even all the GREAT homes with the most popular
breeds. If everyone HSUS wanted to stop breeding
did stop breeding, only about two in ten people
who wanted a dog would be able to get one.
Everything except the No Pets agenda is on the
websites of these organizations, and you can
find that too if you spend a little time.
In summary, though the spay/neuter campaign was
badly needed, show breeders fell into the AR
trap of taking it to the extreme. Now most of
the purebred dogs in this country are produced
from the worst stock we have. No one gets a dog
from a show breeder with blessings to breed it
-- so if you want to breed, you go to a
commercial breeder or pet shop. Result? What
you'd expect. Poorly socialized puppies, many
with genetic problems and bad temperaments. So
guess what -- they end up in shelters, and the
ARs scream PUREBREDS IN THE SHELTERS!! WE HAVE
OVERPOPULATION!!!! STOP BREEDING!!! So we cut
back even more, the commercial breeders pick up
the slack and down goes the quality of purebred
dogs.
Think about this. It
is exactly what has happened and is happening.
Tomorrow: What
breeders have to do to "stop puppy mills" and
save our breeds and our right to breed.
By Sharyn Hutchens
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