Animal Rights Groups: Friends or Foe?

[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.

[intilis]

Hi, not a breeder so have no informed opinion on this. Just saw that you were from Dade city & wanted to say "hi"! My son went to St. Leo university.

[gemy]

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....

[swan]

Gemy, thank you. That was the most cogent, well written, and informative answer I could have received. People like you are exactly why I come to this site.

I agree with you completely on a number of issues, first the sourcing of the statistical data needs to be complete and reliable. But you are right the numbers do not add up. The simple concept of supply and demand will lead always to someone to fill the gap in supply.

I really feel like this issue needs to be discussed, I don't think people realize how complex the issue is and that laws are being passed that effect all of us who love dogs.

I could look it up but wasn't there a law passed recently that lowered the number of dogs you can breed before being classified as a commercial breeder?

The more I learn, the more questions I have.

Gemy, again thank you for your reply.

[gemy]

Originally Posted by swan

Gemy, thank you. That was the most cogent, well written, and informative answer I could have received. People like you are exactly why I come to this site.

I agree with you completely on a number of issues, first the sourcing of the statistical data needs to be complete and reliable. But you are right the numbers do not add up. The simple concept of supply and demand will lead always to someone to fill the gap in supply.

I really feel like this issue needs to be discussed, I don't think people realize how complex the issue is and that laws are being passed that effect all of us who love dogs.

I could look it up but wasn't there a law passed recently that lowered the number of dogs you can breed before being classified as a commercial breeder?

The more I learn, the more questions I have.

Gemy, again thank you for your reply.

You are more than welcome, and Yes there was a law passed just recently that did limit the number of dogs and made many hobby breeders de facto needing to register as a commercial breeder. If you have 4 or more breeding females and sell even one puppy/dog sight unseen you need a license....

There is a thread here entitled something APHIS I think it should be searchable.

The general dog owning population lives in "happy" ignorance, and you see that is "our problem". They for the starters don't know the difference between Animal Rights and Animal Welfare. They confuse the terms. Well every animal lover should be for Animal Welfare hey I know that I am, I guess Animal Rights might just be another term for Animal Welfare.

Quite frankly John Q Public unless truly passionate about dogs, might only spend 5 minutes a year thinking about overall dog welfare and breeders and where their next puppy will come from.

And for me there is the overall belief gap, as a breeder as a person I need to be both true to my beliefs and to position my stance without denigrating another breeder. That is a fine line to walk, especially when I look at commercial breeders. They could have the finest facility in the world, clean, well run, well kept, but unless I see audited statements from them, that included audited health test results, I have a very difficult time believing they all do pre breeding screening tests, breed appropriate genetic tests, and I know for sure they bloody well don't championship their dogs. So they breed purebred dogs okay, but how well do these purebreds meet the standard? This seems to me a BIG Divide.

My pragmatism says they are filling a gap we can't meet. And some-one has to.

Awh so much to think about my head starts swimming.

[magicgenie]

Gemy is intellectual and eloquent, I'm not.
I think the animal rights people are generally kooks and haters and breeders have become a modern day target.
It's too bad the AKC has to support commercial breeding, but that will soon be all that's left because animal rights organizations like HSUS, ASPCA and PETA are crushing the rest of us.
I fled Massachusetts a couple of years ago due to an increasingly breeder hostile legal environment. It's nearly impossible to find a decently bred Yorkie in Massachusetts, and many people now drive through multiple states for my puppies, leading me to feel we're heading to the extinction of hobby breeders, at least those aiming for quality.
It's sad, as my Yorkies have been such a lifeline for me. I'm sorry for people in the future who won't be able to experience devotion to and from a pet, thanks to Animal Rights and the "public" who can't see what's happening.

[swan]

Magicgenie I think you make a really great point about how this could possibly lead to the extinction of small kennels producing healthy, happy, show quality puppies. This concerns me greatly.

I do think there are some solutions but it requires real leadership. Am I misguided to look to the AKC as the organization that should be providing leadership here?

The AKC has to become more modern and connect with young people more. It has to be more than just starting a facebook page and a website. The Junior handlers program is great. Still, more could be done to engage young people. I work as a teacher, I can tell you for sure that many kids would benefit from having a dog let alone competing in an event, any event. There are too many lonely, overweight, kids with nothing to do after school. There are also tons of happy healthy kids that love dogs. Why not create an afterschool program for kids where they are taught all the different events, what makes each breed unique, what jobs they were bred to do. You could have trained dogs there to demonstrate and kids would be encouraged to bring their own dog, if a kid doesn't have a dog they can join to and practice with a trained dog. Just one idea.

We need a way to teach people what breeding really requires, how it is a combination of art and science, the incredible amount of work it is. How expensive it is etc., but provide an entry point for younger adults to learn about breeding dogs the right way. Most breeders I know are getting old. Somebody has to replace these people eventually if it is to go on.

What about a tv network? Horse racing has done this (TVG). Why not the AKC? There are literally limitless amounts of content you could produce that could really show people what is really going on. Plus, the content could be entertaining as hell! I could watch those dogs jump off that dock all day. Seriously though, reality shows, all AKC events, features on heroic or historic dogs. I could go on and on. Again, just an idea.

[swan]

Now this: New Details: Pasadena, CA to Consider Mandatory Spay/Neuter Monday, July 14th ? OPPOSITION NEEDED! | Best In Show Daily | 2014

The stakes are high and they are real. Its a slippery slope.

[scrapindee]

5 years from now there will only be commercial operations.....AKC, hsus all want the hobby breeder to disappear. Jmho.

[swan]

I share your concern scrapindee. I am an eternal optimist and I really think we as aware dog enthusiasts can protect the welfare of animals and the humans that care, nurture, and breed the wonderful dogs millions of people allow to live in their homes. I really just think its a lack of information available to the average dog owner. Information is our ally, if people can understand the big picture, and look at simple macroeconomics they will see, we need great breeders of all breeds.

[magicgenie]

Originally Posted by swan

Magicgenie I think you make a really great point about how this could possibly lead to the extinction of small kennels producing healthy, happy, show quality puppies. This concerns me greatly.

I do think there are some solutions but it requires real leadership. Am I misguided to look to the AKC as the organization that should be providing leadership here?

The AKC has to become more modern and connect with young people more. It has to be more than just starting a facebook page and a website. The Junior handlers program is great. Still, more could be done to engage young people. I work as a teacher, I can tell you for sure that many kids would benefit from having a dog let alone competing in an event, any event. There are too many lonely, overweight, kids with nothing to do after school. There are also tons of happy healthy kids that love dogs. Why not create an afterschool program for kids where they are taught all the different events, what makes each breed unique, what jobs they were bred to do. You could have trained dogs there to demonstrate and kids would be encouraged to bring their own dog, if a kid doesn't have a dog they can join to and practice with a trained dog. Just one idea.

We need a way to teach people what breeding really requires, how it is a combination of art and science, the incredible amount of work it is. How expensive it is etc., but provide an entry point for younger adults to learn about breeding dogs the right way. Most breeders I know are getting old. Somebody has to replace these people eventually if it is to go on.

What about a tv network? Horse racing has done this (TVG). Why not the AKC? There are literally limitless amounts of content you could produce that could really show people what is really going on. Plus, the content could be entertaining as hell! I could watch those dogs jump off that dock all day. Seriously though, reality shows, all AKC events, features on heroic or historic dogs. I could go on and on. Again, just an idea.

Good ideas, Swan, and I hope you hold on to your optimism. For my part, I fear the animal rights people are too deeply dug into all of breeding and we'll have to lose everything before people a couple of generations from now look back with regret at all that's been lost.