calliecritturs
Posted : 4/4/2008 7:37:37 PM
FourIsCompany
I was educated about one thing. That is that many of these puppy mill owners have a very different view of dogs than we (dog-lovers) do. Many see them as livestock. They're no different than cows, chickens or sheep... How many people know, much less have concern for chickens who are raised in deplorable conditions? I know about it, but it doesn't change the fact that I still eat chicken and eggs. Wouldn't I be a hypocrite to insist that dogs get treated better without insisting that ALL animals, regardless of their purpose, get better treatment?
And for that reason, I don't think I would be supportive of legislation to outlaw puppy mills. I think the best way to bring about change is to educate people on what to look for when shopping for a puppy or dog. If people stop buying puppies from pet stores, and instead, insist on visiting the puppy and seeing its parents, then breeders are going to have to straighten up their acts or get into another business.
I have to make somewhat of a difference here --
chicken, eggs, and even beef (which should be a bigger deal here but it isn't) -- the regulations on that should be better simply because it's our food supply. So their conditions should be sanitary and their deaths not slow/painful and they should be healthy - not only because they are a living thing but simply because they ARE our food-supply.
However I honestly don't think you can paint it all with the same brush and say that "pet" dogs have to come under the same legislation as "food animals" and livestock.
Why? Because we feed and house pets. We pay for veterinary care for them to give them a long, healthy life and if they are bred badly it causes extra expense on the people who take them in.
However, I think the decision of how good a 'quality' pup you buy has to be up to the purchaser. By requiring things like genetic testing for ALL puppies? First off all you'll drive the cost of ANY puppy to astronomical heights, and you'll simply set up a black market opportunity for puppies.
As much as we would all like to see back yard breeders and such go out of business -- they won't.
We have to remember here -- we can't legilslate morality successfully. We can educate people, we can tell them what they SHOULD buy, but we can't take away basic rights. You can't make it illegal for someone to allow their dog to get pregnant, essentially -- you can only legislate businesses and "quantity".
I'm not saying this well at all -- but we have to be careful of a knee jerk reaction here because if we narrow it down so that only "good breeders" can breed puppies then we are essentiallyplaying right into the activists hands who want to make sure "pets" are simply exterminated. Who determines what 'good breeders' are?? Where does polish, inspections and **paperwork** become a substitute for good judgment and good care and love?
Unfortunately we all want hard and fast 'rules' -- give me GUIDELINES we scream.
But it's those guidelines that give birth to things like rescue groups whose standards are so high no one can adopt from them, and ultimately it just winds up being more rules that aren't followed and someone else finding a way to profit by circumventing them.
Rather than "rules" and "laws" let's educate people so they know when the puppies in front of them are sick. So they know it's not good to put a baby puppy on a plane and send him as cargo 4000 miles because that breeder had the best website.
Most of all I wish we could get people to understand when they are being "sold" something rather than when something is good or not. We are all such a product of this commerical age -- put something on a billboard and it's gotta be GOOD right?? If they have a nice commercial or website they've gotta be reputable right? If they are licensed and bonded should be ok, right??
No.
*sigh* Why do they call it "common sense" when it's so incredibly UN-common?