Open your laptop just about any morning to FB and you will see all varieties of nutjobs typing away on just about any topic. I try to avoid nutjobs but seeing as I am involved in purebred dogs and rescue its nearly impossible to avoid completely.
The latest craziness was on FB concerning those who advocate the ‘adopt dont shop’ thought process. No matter how many ways people attempted to explain to them that adopting IS shopping they refused to hear it. How many people walk into a shelter and buy the first dog in the first run they encounter? I would hazard to guess zero. People walk all the way through the building looking inside every run until they see a dog that speaks to them in some way. Then they fill out the paperwork, exchange money, get a receipt and take the dog home. That’s called shopping.
What makes me cringe is when I hear people say proudly and arrogantly that they ‘adopted’ or ‘rescued’ a dog implying that my own purchased purebred dogs are somehow ‘less than’ their dog and that I as a breeder or buyer am also ‘less than’ they are. In fact, I am told, they are superior to me in so many ways because they continue to inform me that their ‘rescue’ was saved from <insert illogical phrase here> abused, neglected, used a a bait dog, bred from 1000 times, blahh blahh blahh…..yeah okay. Whatever you wish to believe to make yourself feel more important than me go for it.
The reality is your dog from the shelter was poorly bred, not socialized, not trained and dumped by irresponsible owners to end up as your problem. Good for you for buying the dog from the shelter or rescue and good for you for taking on the tremendous amount of work ahead of you. Kudos and bravo. I think buying dogs from shelters and reputable rescue organizations are a much needed thing and without those willing to do so I wouldnt be able to place the Staffords who come into rescue with me.
BUT you are not a more superior person than those who buy a puppy from me. You simply chose to purchase a different product.
The ‘adopt dont shop’ crowd also support importation of dogs from other countries. How does this even make sense? On one hand they tell me our shelters are full of unwanted dogs and we have a pet ‘overpopulation problem’ yet they bring in more dogs. These dogs also carry diseases which our American dogs are not immune to. Now we have serious health concerns not only within the pet community but into our shelters as well. Let’s sell all the dogs in American shelters FIRST, and then if you feel we need more stray dogs go buy some from other countries after they get health tested, vaccinated and health cleared. Knock yourself out, but dont risk the health of our pets doing so. And dont tell me we have full shelters yet go get more dogs who will inevitably end up in those shelters themselves, or die, or be bred from being called ‘rare white Australian Goldendoodles’. Hypocrites. The lot of you.
And dont lets kid ourselves either. There are terrible breeders of purebred dogs too. There are those who dont even try to be responsible who just put dogs together and sell puppies. There are those who are hoarders. There are collectors. And there are pyramid scheme breeders. If you are ‘in’ purebred dogs long enough you will meet breeders from each of these categories.
The collectors and pyramid schemers are the ones who I take issue with more as they do know better but pretend they are not the problem. This is a topic for another blog entry and rant. So with that….time to play with my puppies. My well bred, well thought out, well planned, fully health tested, very expensive to produce puppies.