[lizzieg]

"You're a dog breeder!"

In today's world, that is a very loaded statement. It's more like an accusation.

"I
told the television news reporter that I breed dogs," a friend from
Dallas told me recently. "He looked at me like he thought I was a
harlot."

Dog owners have allowed the animal rights movement to
redefine our language in order to paint everything we do in the worst
possible light. If we say that we breed dogs, the looks we get ask us
if we own a "puppy mill" or if we are a "backyard breeder."

If
we reply that we are a "hobby breeder," someone immediately asks how we
can consider living creatures a hobby. Some of us try the word
"fancier." We fool no one.

The most pathetic response to the
question is when we call ourselves "responsible breeders." Responsible
to whom? Who defines "responsible" and "irresponsible?" Some
bureaucrat?
A politician? Animal rights cretins who say there is no such thing as a
responsible breeder? Animal rights fanatics would rather kill all
animals than see someone love them. In fact, that's their plan.

If we say we are not breeders, it makes us "pet hoarders." We are tarred as mentally ill people in need of psychotherapy.

The entire language about dog ownership has been hijacked by the rhetoric of the animal rights movement.

The
worst part is that we have allowed it to happen. We are too fearful and
wimpy to stand up for ourselves. We keep searching for inoffensive
euphemisms to describe what we do, so that we don't open ourselves up
to attack.

By doing that, however, we have engineered our own demise.

The
animal rights movement will not go away. Its agenda is to destroy our
right to own or raise animals. Animal rights groups have declared war
on all animal ownership, and they won't stop until they either win or
we finally have the courage to stand up and defeat them.

They have not taken that kind of power over us. We have given it away. We have surrendered our beliefs to the enemy.

We
apologize for what we do. We make weak excuses for things like animal
shelter euthanasia, accidental matings, dog fighting and dangerous
dogs. We take at least part of the responsibility for these problems
onto our own shoulders, when in truth we have no
responsibility at all for creating them.

None whatsoever!

I am sick and tired of watching dog owners constantly apologize and grovel, and allowing themselves to be put on the defensive.

Enough! It's time to stop sniveling about who we are and what we do.

Let me state clearly and for the record: I am a dog breeder. I breed dogs. I raise puppies. I like it. I'm very proud of it.

If you don't like it, you are free to take a flying leap. I don't care what you think of me or what I do.

I
raise two or three litters of English setter puppies a year. I wish I
could raise more puppies, but can't figure out how to do it without
driving myself into bankruptcy.

My dogs work for a living, just
like I do. They have to be good at their jobs, just like I do. If they
aren't good at their jobs, I don't keep them and I certainly don't
breed them.

They are hunting dogs, and they have to be able to
perform to a very demanding standard of excellence to be worthy of
breeding. They have to meet the exacting standard of
championship-quality performance in the toughest competition.

They are professional athletes.

Most of them don't make the cut. Those dogs make wonderful hunting companions or family members.

I
have never had a dog spayed or neutered, except for medical reasons,
and I don't intend to start now. If a dog is good enough for me to
keep, it is good enough to breed.

Nor have I ever sold a puppy
on a spay/neuter contract. With performance dogs, it takes two or three
years to know what you have. There is no way that anyone can know the
full potential or worthiness of a young puppy. I hope every puppy that
I sell will become a great one that is worthy of being bred.

I
do not feel bad (and certainly do not feel guilty) if someone decides
to breed a dog from my kennel that I did not choose to keep for myself
when it was a puppy. It still will be a very nice dog, and I have
worked very hard on my breeding program for 35 years to
assure that very high quality genetics will be passed along and concentrated in any dog that I sell.

On
occasion, I have a puppy that has a serious flaw. I don't sell those
puppies, even though they would make many people very happy. I give
them away free to good homes, and the definition of a good home is mine
because it's my puppy. I own it. You don't.

My responsibility is
to the puppy. It is not to you, and it's not to some gelatinous glob
called "society." I consider myself to be personally responsible for
every puppy I raise, from birth until the day it dies. It always has a
home in my kennel, if its new owner can't keep it or no longer wants it.

That's
a contract written in blood between the puppy and me. It's a contract
written with a handshake with the puppy's new owner.

I laugh
cynically when someone from the Humane Society of the United States or
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals ask if I am a responsible
breeder. HSUS and PETA are two of the most vicious, bloodthirsty and
dishonest snake pits on Earth. Their moral credibility is a negative
number. PETA butchers more than 90-percent of the animals it
"rescues"
every year, and HSUS supports programs and policies that result in the
needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of animals every year.

By
now, I assume that I have pushed all of the buttons of the animal
rights crazies. I can hear them snort and see their pincurls flapping
in indignation. It makes my day.

Can't you hear them, too? They
are calling me an exploiter of animals. They are saying that I
ruthlessly cull and manipulate the genetics of my dogs. They saying
that I
make the exploited poor beasts work for a living and live
up to impossible standards. They will say that I do this to feed and
gratify my own fat ego. They will say that I sell them for money and
exploit them for personal gain. Then, of course, they will say that I
use them to viciously hunt innocent wild animals.

Terrible, terrible me! My mother should have a son like this! She was such a nice woman.

Well,
I plead guilty to all of the charges. Know what else? I don't feel
guilty, not even a little bit. I do it. I like it. I feel good about it.

Now I will speak in my own defense – as a dog breeder.

I
happen to love dogs. I love being around them. I love working with
them. I love watching a puppy grow up and discover its potential. I
love having the privilege of experiencing a truly great dog in its
prime. I love sharing supper with my dogs, wrestling with puppies, and
sacking out with them on the couch. I lose sleep when they get
sick,
and work myself unmercifully to care for them. I spend almost all of
the money I have on them, and some money that I don't have. My heart
breaks when they grow old and die. I have a dozen lifetimes worth of
beautiful memories.

What do the animal rights freaks have? They
have their ideology. They look in the mirror and feel smug and
self-righteous, as if God has personally anointed them to protect
animals from the likes of me.

What they have is nothing at all. Utter sterility. A world devoid of life and love.

They can keep it.

My
life is filled with love and joy and beauty, and I owe most of it to my
dogs. They have helped to keep me sane when sanity was not a given.
They have given me courage on the
days when all I wanted to do was
lie down and quit. They have given me strength to endure on the days
when all I wanted to do is run away and hide.

I owe them my life.

The
animal rights folks are right. I ruthlessly cull and manipulate
genetics. To make the cut, my breeding dogs have had to live up to the
most exacting possible standards and pass the most strenuous tests.

I am very proud of doing that.

The result is that the vast majority of people who buy a puppy from me love it.
When
I sell a puppy, chances are that it has found a home for the rest of
its life. The puppy will have a great chance of leading a wonderful
life. I produce puppies that make people happy to own them and want to
keep them. That's my job as a breeder.

I have done this through
rigorous selection. My puppies today are the result of 35 years of my
stubborn insistence about never breeding a dog that does not have a
wonderful disposition, perfect conformation, great intelligence,
exceptional natural ability, breathtaking style and that mysterious
ingredient called genius.


Every puppy born in my kennel has six or eight or 10 generations of
my own dogs in its pedigree. All of those ancestors possess a high
level of each of those desirable traits. I have raised, trained and
grown old with every dog listed in several generations of each
puppy's pedigree.