Perhaps it is because of Caleb’s illness, perhaps it is because Belle is clearly in pain from her arthritis today, perhaps it is my lack of sleep, but this morning I am going to break my goal of keeping this blog “nice” and go on a rant – about people who indiscriminately breed dogs in their backyard and sell them without having them spayed and neutered.
At my place of work, we have a “classifieds” section on our in-house email system. This morning, once again, someone is posting puppies for sale – this time lab/rottie crosses for $300.
This infuriates me. It sickens me. The vast majority of dogs in shelters, and many of those in rescues, are large breed dogs. Many, many of them are rottie crosses. If they are in a rescue or a no-kill shelter, they may sit there for months. If not, completely healthy but very large and often boisterous dogs are unnecessarily put to sleep. Meanwhile, people who want to make a quick buck toss more large-breed pups into the system, without homechecks, without spay and neuters, without follow-ups and without any contract that guarantees they will take the dog back if the new owner decides they don’t want it.
Can you imagine a society in which people indiscriminately birth and sell human babies? In which people routinely buy babies because they are cute, and then when they become larger and more boisterous and harder to control they abandon them?
Animals are sentient creatures. They think, they hurt, they get lonely, they learn, they grow, they fear, and many – such as cows and pigs – cry real tears.
Of those lab/rottie cross pups for sale, I can guarantee at least one will end up in a shelter. One will probably end up hit by a car because it has been allowed to wander free. At least a couple will have pups or will sire pups, several of which will end up in shelters, or killed, or having more pups. And the cycle continues. Will it never stop???
Most likely, readers of this blog are those who already know all this, so I’m preaching to the converted. But at 6:30 in the morning, with one rescue dog about to cross the bridge and another in need of my attention, and thousands of others out there just waiting for a home…..an ad for rotti/lab puppies was the last thing I wanted to see.
If you or anyone you know wants to make a lifetime commitment to an animal, go to www.petfinder.com, not to a backyard breeder. Please. For the love of doG.
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