The New York Times is a little slow on the uptake and is just now reporting on PeTA’s disgraceful advertising campaign featuring dead dogs in body bags and the message that if you buy your dog you are directly killing a dog in a shelter.
Mind you, this message is coming from people who kill 97% of the dogs they get their hands on, so scolding you for “buy one, kill one” when their own kill rate is adopt one out, kill two hundred and fifty is just slightly disingenuous.
I actually find their KKK comparison rather hilarious and will comment on that new ad in a future post.
But now is as good of a time as any to remind you that you’re committing no sin by buying your dog from a breeder.
That’s right. I said it. Don’t “rescue” your next pet, buy one from a responsible breeder. The “shelter” establishment in this country is a disgrace, filled with wack-job people who kill animals to “save” them. Animals that are only killed because the shelter industry is inept and has betrayed its founding mission to save and re-home animals.
They kill because they make the animals sick through sloppy cleaning and poor handling. They kill because they do not want to care for sick animals. They kill because they do not effectively use the Internet and the media to promote their pets. They kill because they think volunteers are more trouble than they are worth, even though those volunteers would help eliminate the “need” for killing. They kill because they don’t want a foster care program. They kill because they are only open for adoption when people are at work and families have their children in school. They kill because they discourage visitors with their poor customer service. They kill because they do not help people overcome problems that can reduce impounds. They kill because they refuse to work with rescue groups. They kill because they haven’t embraced TNR [Trap, Neuter, Release] for feral cats. They kill because they won’t socialize feral kittens. They kill because they don’t walk the dogs which makes the dogs so highly stressed that they become “cage crazy.” They kill them for being “cage crazy.” They kill because their shoddy tests allow them to claim that animals are “unadoptable.” They kill because their draconian laws empower them to kill.
Some kill because they are steeped in a culture of defeatism, or because they are under the thumb of regressive health or police department oversight. But they still kill. They never say, “we kill because we have accepted killing in lieu of having to put in place foster care, pet retention, volunteer TNR, public relations, and other programs.” In short, they kill because they have failed to do what is necessary to stop killing.
What allows them to continue killing without total condemnation for doing so is the religion of pet overpopulation. It is the political cover that prevents even the animal rescuers and advocates from demanding an immediate end to the whole bloody mess. And, at its core, it is an unsupportable myth. The syllogism goes as follows: shelters kill a lot of animals; shelters adopt out few of them; therefore, there are more animals than homes. Hence, there is pet overpopulation.
– Nathan Winograd, Redemption p. 157-58
Don’t support these people with your donations. Even if you take one of those poor dogs home, you’re just allowing them to continue to kill thousands upon thousands of other dogs with the money they gain from your “adoption fee.” Rescuing a dog from such a situation is just as bad as “rescuing” a dog from a puppy mill by buying your dog at the mall. You might be removing one dog from a bad situation, but your actions are just enabling many many more to meet a worse fate.
Don’t support killing, buy a puppy from someone who has hand raised that dog in their home. Someone who has a name, a face, and a home that you can visit. Someone who loves the sire and dam and who has trained them to display their abilities and documented their physical and genetic health with x-ray exams and DNA analysis and by researching the pedigrees to discover other warning signs for diseases that don’t have tests.
Reward that person for being a resource to you before and after your puppy purchase. Reward that person for having a phone number that you can call with all of your seemingly stupid, but vital, questions. Reward that person for preserving the health and abilities of your breed for one more generation so that your children and their children can enjoy that breed’s companionship. Reward that person for their puppy contract that allows you and them to clearly express what is expected of both parties, and what needs to be done if you need to relinquish your animal.
Reward that person for socializing the parents and the puppies, mitigating the chances that small behavioral problems lead to animal abandonment. Reward that person for allowing you to see the dam and possibly the sire so you can judge what your puppy might grow up to be like. Reward that person for raising an animal in a home, just like the one where it will spend the rest of its happy life with you.
This is the propaganda put out by eco-terrorist radical groups like PeTA who at their core are against all animal companions:
They don’t tell you that there are more than twice the number of homes looking to get a new dog in the USA every day as the number of dogs killed by “shelters” like PeTA.
They don’t tell you that there isn’t an overpopulation problem, there’s only a problem with institutionalized hoarding, abuse, and killing of animals known as our shelter system.
They don’t tell you that the majority of animals killed by humane societies are being put down by their owners for old age or disease, not because they are being abandoned.
They don’t tell you that the top five reasons that people ditch their dogs at shelters have nothing to do with breeders or overpopulation: (1) Moving, (2) Landlord Issues, (3) Cost of Pet Maintenance, (4) No Time For Pet, (5) Inadequate Facilities.
Be a part of the solution:
Buy your animal for a fair price from a good breeder. Encourage that breeder and others who aspire to be like them to continue the good work of breeding healthy and socialized animals. Buying from good breeders is the ideal, natural, and sustainable means of acquiring your animal companions.
Conscientious hobby breeders are the only ones who are concerned with the present and future of their breed. Shelters are stuck in the past. Rescue groups operate in the here and now and most spay and neuter the animals in their care; they assuage a problem of the present, they do not build a path to the future. You can treat the symptoms of a disease or you can strive for its cure. Shelters and Rescue are palliative measures, they treat the symptoms but they are not a cure.
Socialize your pet and avoid reinforcing behavioral problems that could lead to your need to relinquish it. When you buy a pet, accept that you will need to always live in adequate housing for you and that pet from now until the pet dies. That means paying more for extra square feet, a yard, or proximity to a park. That means buying instead of renting from a landlord, or putting down more money as a security deposit and to pay for repairs. Realize that the purchase cost of the pet is insignificant compared to the cost of feeding, grooming, and health care over the pet’s lifetime; you’re one accident away from a $3,000 vet bill, can you afford it? Spend time with your pet; they are social and emotional beings and they live for our attention. You owe it to your pet to work harder to find a job and a lifestyle that is conducive to pet ownership; make time for your pet.
Buying from a breeder is the ethical, moral, economical, future-thinking, breed-supporting, natural, ideal, and justified way to adopt your next animal companion. Don’t forget though, that where you buy is only the first step in becoming a responsible and caring companion to an animal. No matter where you acquire your pet, their life and well being truly is in your hands. Don’t drop them.
P.S. If you think my title is a shot at breed rescue or no-kill shelters, move along. It’s simply mocking the disgusting stupidity of the PeTA message. Breed rescue is doing the fine work that our shelter system once did and should do again, they do it without million dollar budgets and often without much thanks or recognition. If you’re looking to spread some of your tax refund around this year, don’t waste it on a national animal killing lobby organization, find a local breed rescue and make their day or give to a shelter that works hard to find homes instead of one that works hard to kill animals.
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Anton
Christopher
Lawrence Dillard
Lech
Stephanie
Essere
Bleh, PeTA.
What a bunch of retards. Eat a hamburger, get a life.
Next time I see a PeTA shirt I’m spraying you with bitter apple. When you treat dogs like humans you give me permission to treat you like a naughty dog.
Their entire campaign proves why they relate so well to animals, they aren’t fit for polite society and clearly people hate them.
How is it that peta is even taken seriously anymore?
I’ve been, for the most part, very happy with my shelter adoption experiences, and I’ll probably go that route in the future. Not because peta told me too, but because that is the method of acquisition that works best for me. I have no time for puppies.
Yes, there are many smart and logical reasons to adopt from a shelter or a rescue (even if that shelter isn’t running the best operation it could)… after all, it’s about the dogs.
IMO, all of those reasons are strong and plentiful enough where they don’t need to be enhanced with a bucket of guilt and demeaning the “competition.”
If we are to believe Winograd, and I do, a no-kill nation is possible without any need to resort to blaming anyone, especially the public and breeders… even the irresponsible ones. It’s not as if all the hot air spewed at any sort of breeder has done one bit of good for abandoned dogs.
I used to preach “buy from a responsible breeder” – unfortunately there aren’t nearly enough to supply the demand. OH I still preach it, but I’ve gotten more realistic. I want people to seek responsible breeders, I want them to demand them, but in some breeds it is well nigh impossible to find one. In other breeds, not such a problem. I used to preach “get a dog from a shelter” I don’t do that any more either. I got a dog from the shelter who turned out to be one heck of a good dog. But in my journey to ensure that it turned out that way I learned the error of my ways. The best way to increase the chances of a success in keeping pet and human together is to be able to predict the qualities of the pet. If the person getting the pet gets their realistic expectations fulfilled then chances are it will work. If the person gets a big surprise — not so much. The reason the mixes out number purebreds in shelters isn’t just elitism, although there is some of that. It is also that people have a very real, very honest need to choose something where they have both the ability and willingness to meet the needs of the pet. And if you can’t predict the needs of the pet, disaster can follow.
Now I explain to people what a responsible breeder is, why each of the things I list makes them responsible, and the typical failure points of getting a pet. Most responsible breeder things COULD be done by shelter and rescue – matching, support, follow up etc. I try to arm people with information so they can evaluate the trade-offs they must inevitably make. Shelter dogs can make great pets but they need the same support and follow-up that a responsible breeder offers. And that is where I toss down the gauntlet – whether it is a breeder or a shelter or a pet shop or a rescue or a private person transferring a dog the question I ask is – what is being done to (a) make this match a success and (b) protect the dog if it fails.