In high school, I saw a play of the same name as the title of this post. I never forgot it. I later was judging a high school theater competition in Illinois when I saw this play again. The play deals with the illogical thinking that causes racism or judgmentalism in our world (the play is actually set in England) in a very simple way. I often use the title trying to explain the absurdity of judgmentalism. Some get it; some don’t.
Having only experienced life as a white person, I can’t begin to try to expound on the complexities of life as an individual of color, but I am a member of a community that has been harassed, had our rights stripped and found ourselves on the receiving end of some of the most vile and degrading lies and insults that you can imagine. That’s right; I am a BREEDER!
In fact, I am a damn fine Breeder, but that doesn’t matter to some people. To them, the mere fact that I cause additional life to be born I am an evil person because somewhere some dog unknown to me is supposedly going to die because the people who “buy” from me have made a choice to buy a purposely created dog rather than a dog of unknown origins with unknown problems. The absurdity of this argument is further laughable by the mere fact that the majority of these people also have produced children of their own while real-life children suffer through their childhoods without a family of their own. That is what I call hypocrisy.
These hypocrites also fail to note that the most recent study I have found puts “purebred” dogs in shelter make up about 5% of the shelters canine populations. 5%! Over the last 15 years I have kept track of dogs in my primary breed through Petfinder and our national breed clubs rescue organization (the only rescue in the nation for the breed). In those 15 years, the annual intake or dogs in the breed is an average of 0.8 animals a year. Let’s repeat that– the average number of dogs in my primary breed that end up in a shelter or rescue is LESS THAN A SINGLE DOG A YEAR! That number would be even lower, but several years ago, an aging breeder asked a girl at her veterinarian’s office if she knew anyone looking for part-time work because she needed a new “helper.” Well, that girl called her friend the local Animal Control officer and the AC bullied the woman into getting rid of the majority of her dogs, and the lady’s lawyer placed several in a shelter out-of-state. (I picked up those dogs from the shelter, and was able to blow the whistle on the injustice of what was happening by the excellent shape the older dogs were in. The lady eventually was able to get ALL of her dogs back, and the AC lost her job because of this and several other incidents like it). If I remove the dogs that were placed because of an out-of-control Animal Control Officer, the annual average drops to 0.2 animals a year over the last 15 years, and none of those are dogs that I bred. So, how exactly am I killing innocent dogs? My other breed is very popular. It is a family favorite, so there are almost always puppies available anywhere in the country, so you would expect that shelters would be over-run with them, right? Well, there are so few that RESKEWS are actually importing dogs FROM OTHER COUNTRIES to supply the demand for dogs of this popular breed. So, again, how am I killing innocent dogs? It’s easy– I am not! We need to do away with blaming breeders for dogs in shelters. That onus should fall solely on the owner. We don’t automatically blame a 70 year-old mother because of the actions of her 50 year-old son, so why should a breeder be blamed for the actions of a buyer? They shouldn’t.
The truth is that there ARE bad breeders out there– people who do not take adequate care of their animals, who abuse or neglect them. The same is true, though, for every group of people on this planet! If a white cop illegally murders a person of color, does that make all white cops bad or evil? A black man who commits a crime against a white woman does not make ALL black men evil or criminal. You can no more blame a whole race of people for the actions of a few than you can blame all breeders for the actions of a few. It is insanity!
So, the next time you see these Animal Rights Terrorists picketing a breeder, or starting an on-line lynch mob based on little to no evidence, remember that the breeder may very well be one of your best friends– a SMITH.
formermonk 