A Few Words about the
Animal Rights (AR) Movement…
In the past few years there have been a lot of changes regarding your rights – specifically your right to own a dog or any other pet. Many bills are being introduced in states, cities, and counties that on the surface appear to be aimed at mass-production of puppies – the puppy mills.
Who wouldn’t want that?
Upon closer reading of these bills, however, it is clear that the direct impact is aimed entirely on the smaller hobby/show breeders by imposing limits, licensing and fines – which any of the big commercial mills will find no burden to bear. The people who are truly observing good animal husbandry guidelines, doing recommended health testing, breeding the best and healthiest dogs possible, will be required to obtain costly licenses, abide by rules and limits which will, for the most part, make it impossible for them to continue.
Those who only seek to make money by breeding any male to any female, regardless of pedigree, health, age, etc., and mass produce pets as livestock, will not be as affected by these fines, rules and licenses, as they are much bigger organizations, with much deeper pockets to legally fight any legislation which would endanger them. It won’t be until the smaller, ethical and responsible breeders are gone that AR Extremists will set their sights on the mills.
So, where will you get YOUR next pet?
If the ethical and responsible breeders aren’t supplying puppies to those who want them, where will you get your next puppy or kitten?
Perhaps from the shelters?
Maybe from a trendy Pet Store?
If so, you will be buying directly or indirectly from the mills. NO responsible breeder would ever sell lovingly raised pets through a pet store.
Many, if not most, of the dogs in shelters were born at a puppy mill - to parents who had no health testing, were raised in a cage with no socialization, and taken from their mother at 5-6 weeks old to be shipped to a pet store and sold with meaningless "papers" and validations. And when they were no longer the cute little puppy that triggered the impulse purchase, and didn't automatically understand housetraining and had no other social behaviors, they were dumped at the shelter.
Some undoubtedly are strays, born on the streets, or the result of breeding a beloved pet to the neighors mutt, accidently or on purpose, and then finding that all those who said they wanted a puppy, really DIDN'T want a puppy.
The AR groups use the argument that all breeders are the same, and that breeders are the direct cause of thousands of dogs being euthanized every year in shelters. Again, if you do a little research, you will quickly find that, while sadly, there are many animals being euthanized in shelters every year, there are many other shelters which are actually importing dogs and cats from other countries (sometimes as far away as Taiwan) because the demand for pets in their area is higher than they can supply.
Enlisting the aid of celebrities and common folk alike, the AR groups use the pretense that they want to help unfortunate animals – even some vets have been taken in by the propaganda and rhetoric. The harsh reality is that the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Human Society of the United States (HSUS) and others, have as their ultimate goal, the eradication of all domestic animals, including those that are raised on farms as food, as the AR radicals also feel that we should all be vegetarians.
While I have nothing against anyone who chooses to be a vegetarian, I believe that we all have the right to choose NOT be a vegetarian.
Please consider this:
The Animal Rights (AR) Agenda
"A major goal of the animal rights agenda is to ELIMINATE PET OWNERSHIP in the U.S. by the year 2050", according to a speaker at the 2004 Animal Law Institute Conference held in San Antonio, Texas. David Favre, J.D., stated that the first step towards accomplishing the animal rights goal is to:
change the legal status of animal owners, by changing the word "owner" to "guardian" in state laws and local ordinances.
Then, "establish the banning of certain breeds, which we intend to later escalate to ALL breeds; - make it so difficult for the hobby breeder to comply with laws that they will surrender,
- and lastly, push the sterilization of babies so the species will eventually become extinct.
It will be "incremental elimination" of human ownership of domestic animals, and extinction of the canine and feline species.
Put more simply by the ARists themselves:
“We have no ethical obligation to preserve the different breeds of livestock produced through selective breeding ...One generation and out. We have no problems with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding.”
Wayne Pacelle, CEO HSUS— Animal People News, May 1993
More Info:
There are many websites that will give you more information – a very good starting place is:
http://www.pet-law.com/index.html
http://www.americanssupportinganimalownership.com/
http://www.activistcash.com/
How you can help the animals:
Please don’t be taken in by these radical groups. If you feel you would like to make a donation to help animals, please research thoroughly to be sure who is behind the group you are donating to.
If you want to make a donation to a group that will actually HELP the animals, a great place to get good information is the AKC’s Breed Rescue website:
http://www.akc.org/breeds/rescue.cfm
Also, giving directly to your local animal shelter will enable them to use the money directly for helping animals in their care, and will NOT end up lining the pockets of AR lobbiests.