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Originally Posted by swan  Because I value the opinions of the breeders of YT so much I would like to ask for your opinion on a matter involving the AKC.
Recently a reporter from bestinshowdaily.com published an article about the AKC donating $10,000 to an organization of commercial breeders in Missouri.
Here is a link to the article: Puppy Mills and the American Kennel Club | Best In Show Daily | 2014
The reaction he got from readers was pretty shocking.
Not long after a rebuttal appeared on the same site, arguing the need for commercial breeders. If you like you can read that here Combating Animal Rights A Different Perspective | Best In Show Daily | 2014
What do you all make of all this?
Why has the Humane Society and the ASPCA received a free pass from the media?
For full disclosure I am NOT a breeder, I do have two yorkies one I got because the owner could not care for her anymore. The other I got from a great breeder I met at a dog show. She invited me to her home, I met the mom and dad, we sat at her table and we went over pedigree's, magazine articles on the puppies parents and grand parents. We talk to this day, and my dog is incredible. I also have two dogs I got from a local rescue, i'm guessing shih-tzu/pug mix. My experience here, and only mine, but my rescues cost me exponentially more than the yorkie I got from a breeder.
Genuinely interested in reading our breeders informed opinions. |
Thank you for posting these two links. ANd I am a small hobby/show breeder, I also do performance events with my dogs.
The first thing I will say it is a complex issue. I have difficulty in coming to a decisive point of view for a number of reasons. Many of the articles I have read just like the two you posted suffer in my opinion from a lack of documenting their stats and facts. For example the 300,000 dogs imported by "shelters" to "rescues would be enhanced by the link to the report from the Dept of Agriculture, or how about what year they were talking about,was it 2013? or was the article written in 2013 published in 2014, and they are actually talking about 2012? Sourcing of the original data -how was it derived? From import licenses issued? From the shelter self reporting unaudited numbers? Of the 300,000 imported how many were from Canada then Mexico, Canada and the USA share the largest undefended border in the world, and it makes logical sense to me if there is an overage of shelter dogs in a neighbouring state/province and a need for adoptable animals south/north of the border, I think that would be a good practice.
The "payment referred to" was is it truly just to cover the costs of the transportation and some administrative/processing fee?
The above represents why I feel the number just might be "right" or accurate but I have no assurance or confidence level it is, based on someone just saying it is so.
Again a stat or fact of 70-80% of s/n dogs in the USA - comes from where? What was the data collection source? Was it sourced by US Census taking where people self report? To state the obvious 70-80% has to based on some overall population of dogs - where did that number ie the "total number come from"? Does it for example include an estimate of the number of dogs living in the wild, and or an estimate of the stray population?
Does the 70-80% represent what individual vets feel, or say from AAHA or AVMA data? How well does that data reflect the overall dog population? Not to put too fine a point on this - but if every vet reported 100% accurate data, and 100% of practicing vets reported, and you added up the number of dog clients each vet has the total dogs you would come to would definitely not equal the total dog population. One simple fact is that some folks simply don't take their pets to the vet, or only take them once or twice and never again....
But I do have a sense of that number and that only by observation, in public going to parks, walking, swimming, hiking etc, I am lucky in any one day seeing an intact animal other than my own (of course I can't tell if a female is spayed but I can certainly tell if a male is neutered.
It is probably closer to 90% in the city I live in.
But given the two authors assumption - based on a published 1987 AR agenda that they want to abolish pet ownership, that seems like a pretty unambiguous statement and therefore a logical premise to go forward with.
Divide and conquer is a tactic that has been employed successfully for over 1000 yrs. Perhaps you are aware of the Chinese ancient book - The Art of War by Tsun Tso that tactic is there. Also know thy enemy....
So it is logical to suppose that this is a viable tactic the AR groups will employ.
And there is little doubt in my mind that pitting one set of breeders against another is good strategy for the AR groups.
Now having said all that, I do concur that our population of show breeders and hobby breeders are not able to meet the demand for pet dogs. So that gap will be filled, and has been by commercial breeders. I have not come up with an alternative solution. But like many small home breeders, I have a fundamental difficult time rationalizing how a pet that is destined to live in a home environment is 100% reared in a kennel environment. How can the kennel provide the necessary socialization to a home environment?
Intuitively I feel how can you afford to pay the personnel necessary to socialize, exercise, wash and groom, and vet care 200 dogs?
In terms of the pet overpopulation problem, I too have doubts that there is one.
I did this once already a very rough and tumble calculation on 300,000,000 million population with 10% of folks owing at least one dog that is 30,000,000 dogs in the USA. I have read stats that say the population of dogs is 80million or more. That is closer to 26%. But going on the ultra conservative number of 30million then a 1% demand for a new dog would mean 300,000 dogs are placed in new homes every year!! That's a lot of dogs!!!!
So there is no doubt there are dogs in shelters we read about them all the time!!
Just for interest sake I went to the Toronto Humane society - they serve a city of over 3million folks - pretty big city. So guess what the number of dogs up for adoption were? Pause.............. Drum roll a grand total of 13 that is it only 13 dogs. The I went to the Etobicoke Humane Society its grand total is Drum Roll 9 dogs. Etobicoke is a suburb of Toronto.
But in all fairness we have more than a few shelters and instead of having a portal that shows all available dogs in all shelters across the GTA you need to go through them one by one. How archaic and wastefull!
But given that a demand for new dogs is 300,000 and may even be significantly more and probably is as one year the usa supposedly imported 300,000 dogs to shelters then it is truly hard to understand why there are so many dogs in shelters.
Again clear stats and facts for reasons for surrender and a quarterly reporting made mandatory for all shelters to a National Reporting body, on population and movement in and out of the shelter on a quarterly basis, with a pre-set grouping of reasons for in/outs we might even be able to understand the situation. Get your M>I>T programming geniuses to design a computer system that can roll up the numbers, link shelters to each other etc etc. Make it a part of the Voluntary mandatory extracurricular activities
If as one report which I linked once on another thread and of course can't find again, but said that the highest number in their shelter was from owner surrenders. Other areas like your puppmill states might show different stats.
Now on the subject of puppymills, I am perfectly prepared to believe that it was a term invented by the AR agenda groups. In order to set one group against another, you must have names for the different sub-sets. The more different subsets you have, the higher the chance you can convince one sub-set they either have nothing in common with the other, or that set does not meet your higher standards, in other words to create reasons to divide the group up from with-in itself. There is some truth to the axiom, "united we stand, divided we fall".
Would should be
crystal clear to all our many different types of Breeders the BANNING of pet ownership is NOT something we want to see happen!
And I hope that stems from a love of dogs and the role,the very important role dogs play in our lives.
For me the longer we wait, the greater we let folks define who we are, what we do, folks that are out to make pet ownership illegal.
It is quite possible that the AKC or at least some members of it, see the bigger picture. We need to act Now, for we failed to Act Yesterday to provide a united front against the AR agenda. They should not OWN the MESSAGE. We need to get OUR MESSAGE OUT.
We small breeders fought hard against the latest APHIS change and Lost. Their agenda or strategy can be very long term, and very insidious.
Phew I have written a lot but there is a lot more to write about....