Posted on 02/20/2010 9:43:43 AM PST by JoeProBono
The West Hollywood City Council has put an end to sales of dogs and cats in pet stores.
In an ordinance that passed unanimously Tuesday night, sales of animals in stores are now prohibited in the city.
The ordinance, unanimously approved at its first reading a few weeks ago, is just the latest piece of animal-welfare legislation the city has taken up. In 2003, West Hollywood became the first city in the country to outlaw the declawing of cats.
The new law, called the Ordinance Prohibiting the Sale of Dogs and Cats in Companion Animal Stores, is aimed at curtailing puppy mills and easing the conditions endured by animals in the puppy-mill industry, which relies heavily on sales through pet stores, officials said in a statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
USDA does regulate commercial breeders. The abhorent ones we see (used as a brushck by HSUS and PETA to paint breeders) are already in violation of USDA regs. How would you know if a breeder knew all the dogs names? Shall we test them? What number do you set as an ok number of litters per year?
BTW many shelters have to import adoptable dogs from other places (sometimes foreign countries, altho that may not be happening now as it caused a hew and cry). The stats for pet overpopulation generally include feral cats (which are certainly not the fault of any breeder) and unadoptable animals (old, since, poor temperament).
So, tell me, what is your perfect law regarding pet breeding? FWIW I really don’t like commercial breeders either, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to regulate them out of business without regulating breeders in general out of business.
I have absolutely no problem with not letting pet stores keep cats and dogs for sale-selling them out of pet stores only encourages puppy and kitten mills to flourish because most pet store owners never see where the little animals come from-the puppy mill owners just put them into carriers, drive to the pet store, drop them off and collect their money. Animals bred for sale need to be kept in nice, clean surroundings with fresh air, proper care, room to run and exercise-even the sheep and goats my neighbor sells have a clean, nice barn and pen and plenty of food and water.
I wholeheartedly agree that PETA and HSUS are way out there on the sanity scale, though-pets are not people, no matter that we might think of ours that way.
I bought my Siberian Husky and every other dog I’ve ever owned from reputable, AKC recommended private breeders-not pet shops or unknown breeders. However, every cat I’ve ever had has come from an animal shelter. I have also sometimes fostered cats for the local animal welfare society, and two of my three cats are fosters whose forever home ended up being right here with me.
That said, my daughter does volunteer work for a local (non-HSUS) shelter in her community that, among other things reports puppy mills to the AKC and gets the animal cruelty people to bust them. She fell in love with and adopted an AKC Staffordshire Terrier pup confiscated from a puppy mill along with about 40 other purebred puppies and dogs-the dog is two years old now, and although he sounds like doom when the doorbell rings, he lets her cats use him for a pet bed. If he had been sold out of a pet store after spending his first few weeks in those awful conditions, he would likely have been psychotic, vicious or developed some chronic illness.
The conditions in that puppy mill were so terrible that the owners did jail time, in addition to fines (good). All of those puppies were destined for area pet shops, and many were sick with kennel cough and other respiratory infections. Some were deformed due to inbreeding. Fortunately all but two terminally ill dogs were adopted out.
I think puppy mill operators and the pet store owners who buy from them should be sentenced to a month of living in a little cage with only wire mesh for a floor, feces all over the place, no exercise and almost no food or water. Just my humble opinion...
The problem is, there are already regulations in place, and the USDA does an apparently terrible job enforcing them.
Maybe they should ban the sale of dead animals and animal byrpoducts: Pet food; hamburgers; hot dogs; fish; chicken; turkey; sausage; leather (oh, the irony), and so on.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on the puppy mill/pet store connection. Those who don’t get it simply haven’t done the research. I believe over 80% of dogs sold in stores come from puppy mills. If one can’t tell the difference between puppy mills and breeders, there is a problem. Here in LA there are far too many “backyard breeders” - and I have issues with those as well. A good breeder cares about the animals they breed and will charge enough to discourage “bunchers” from getting their hands on their animals. In other words, they care about who gets one of their animals. There are far too many animals (purebred and mixed alike) who need homes and not having them in a pet store will certainly not curtail one’s ability to adopt one. If you must have a specific breed, yes, you can always go to a breeder, but you can also visit your local shelters and rescues (most every breed has a breed-specific rescue). There are plenty of pure-breds at both and they need homes.
I dunno...pick a number of litters. Five? Six? That would be pretty generous for a non-commercial operation.
Or ban selling the puppies to businesses. No one breeds 800 puppies so they can sell to individuals.
Here in Tucson, the shelters are full. Lots of folks have home rescue operations, and will take dogs from the Pound and Shelter and care for them until someone takes them. My Aussie came from one - the lady had 8 puppies from the Humane Shelter.
USDA is supposed to regulate commercial breeders, but I would bet it isn’t a top priority.
Hunte (http://www.huntecorp.com/default.html) has 100 breeds, including Border Collies. There is no way the Border Collies are worth a damn. I have no sympathy for Hunte.
They only buy cats and dogs to BBQ these days in West Hollywood.
We were in China in 2002 and went to a restaurant that had the “entrees” in cages as you walked into the courtyard.
I ate a lot of rice and veggies.
The Amish here is Ohio run puppy mills.
>Im sorry you hate me.<
I wouldn’t waste one second of worry someone that clueless hates you.
Ok, I have to comment on why AKC doesn’t adopt Swedish ideas. For one thing, Sweden has a population of 9,316,256 (As of 31 August 2009). The United States is now at 308,725,000. The Swedish Kennel Club consists of a whopping 25 clubs. The AKC, on the other hand, has more than 550 member clubs and more than 4,500 affiliated clubs.
If people are worried about how dogs are bred, they can make a huge difference by insisting on the purchase of pups from litters whose parents have had health checks and which have some sort of history of performance or conformation titles. If people didn’t buy pups from pet shops, the stores would not carry dogs. The consumer must take responsibility and vote with his pocketbook.
My fondness for Border Collies wouldn’t make me very fond of the AKC running anything!
http://www.bordercollie.org/akc.html
So, my question is, if those 2 countries produce conformation BC's, but still obviously produce enough BC's to work the sheep farms, why is it so frightening to allow those who wish to show BC's here in AKC events?
New Zealand champion BC (and a handsome fellow he is!)
So, you set the number of puppies at 800? I’m trying to get you to tell me what a puppy mill is and isn’t.
And frankly, the number of dogs in shelters is not the issue. Because if it is, then you would need to agree with the HSUS and PETA that as long as there are homeless dogs, no one should breed.
I admit, I’m not exactly pining... ;)
The problem is looking for a Border Collie that can herd. Diluting the breed with non-workers harms the breed, that exists as sheep dogs. The drive and understanding that makes a good sheep dog is too easily lost.
Aussies USED to be excellent herd dogs, but now it is almost impossible to find one that can herd an angry cat out of a paper sack! They are also heavier boned and less agile than their working forefathers.
BTW - the Border Collie in the picture doesn’t look much like a Border Collie. Too heavy boned, and too hairy. But with the right temperament and instinct, it could get the job done - but the shows don’t test for that.
Some of us love the Border Collie as it was developed - for work. We don’t want to see ‘Border Collies’ that don’t know one end of the sheep from the other. The sport breeders are as much a pain.
You know, over the past 20 years hobby breeders and the AKC have done a great deal of education on just those things. I see a great deal of difference in the sort of people who call me about puppies now compared to when I first started. Unfortunately, I guess you will never get close to 100% of people willing to be educated. The REALLY sad/scary thing is that more and more I talk to otherwise smart people who thinks the government should regulate something as personal as whether or not you have to sterilize your dog.
It doesn’t harm the breed. It probably causes a split, but people who want border collies to herd are not forced to breed to non herding border collies.
A puppy mill is exactly that - where the puppy is a widget to sell, not a dog bred for a purpose. Being widgets, they don’t need to do much besides breed puppies that will sell in pet shops. And too many go the cheapest route in their production, leading to animal abuse.
That is not what a responsible breeder does.
A good breeder provides something that isn’t possible to reliably find in shelters - a dog with a purpose. A Lab that can truly retrieve, and not just sit around and look Lab-ish. A Border Collie that can herd. Pointers that point. Maybe even a pet dog with reliable characteristics, although most mutts make great pet dogs.
Frankly, if you are pumping out 5-6 litters/year, you probably aren’t a good breeder. If you pump out thousands, with hundreds of breeds, then I KNOW you are not a good breeder.
It destroyed the Australian Shepherd.
I own one, but they aren’t the breed they were in the 70s.
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