"I have personally visited an Amish kennel in Pennsylvania. All the
dogs I saw were healthy."
And that is what you'd find at the majority of commercial breeding
kennels. But it needed to be said because right now the views that
are being widely promoted, universally passed on by our media, and too
often used by our politicians as the basis for laws are:
1. Commercial breeders -- anyone who intends making money from
breeding dogs -- are PUPPY MILLS, the scum of the earth, regardless of
the details of how they do it. Regulation's not enough: these
operations need to be wiped out.
2. Home hobby breeders are just tax cheats and animal abusers trying
to fly under the radar. They need to be licensed, given lots of rules,
pay fees for breeding and selling, and be inspected at 'any reasonable
time.' If they get caught in any violation they need the bejesus fined
out of them and after a couple of fines, take away that license!
3. Accidental breeders may supply half of America's dogs, but they are
100% IRRESPONSIBLE. These people need to have all their puppies taken
away so they can be 'adopted responsibly' by animal shelters; the
irresponsible guardians who allowed this to happen should be seriously
zapped so they won't even think of letting it happen again. Mandatory
spay/neuter of all dogs and cats is the real answer.
Are these statements too harsh? Well, when was the last time you saw
ANY positive news item or heard any politician or public figure say
ANYTHING good about any of those sources? You can read good things
about 'adopting' from a shelter all day long; ditto getting a dog from
rescue, but buying a puppy? There is NO positive press for any of the
possible sources.
So we Americans don't approve of ANY of the possible sources of our
puppies. And almost without a second thought we support laws that
squeeze all of them more tightly, month by month and year by year.
Denver already bans all breeding of dogs, Rhode Island bans the
breeding of cats, many California localities are regulating breeding
out of existence, and there's a good chance that California will enact
what is effectively a statewide ban on breeding of both dogs and cats,
early in 2008. It's called the 'California Mexican Pets Act' ... Oh,
wait... the word is 'healthy', isn't it?
When we support getting puppies from 'none of the above' what
we're really saying is we want our only choices to be the animal
shelter, illegal breeders, and imports. If that truly is what we
want, then we need only continue on the present course.
America needs to spend about twenty minutes paying attention to what's
going on in the world of pets and then make up her mind. Then we
better tell our politicians.
AND we need to stop the donations flowing to HSUS and the rest to
support all this rubbish. As long as they have plenty of money,
they'll be able to buy enough politicians to get the laws they want.
We have maybe five years to do all this, before it's too late. After
that ... well, read the essay at: Pet-law for a prediction of what things will be like in twenty years if we
don't turn this around.
Got 50 yet? 50 friends and acquaintances who understand and who are
passing on the word that "Friends don't let friends give to HSUS,
PETA, or the ASPCA"?
Walt Hutchens
Timbreblue Whippets
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