Have I got that straight? The view of many animal-rights advocates is that it is not good to buy an animal from a breeder, because there are already too many animals; while if you buy an animal from a shelter, you are simply giving a home to an animal who could benefit from one, making things so that there is one less animal either (1) in a shelter or (2) euthanized by a shelter.

What do I see wrong with this view?

(1) As i've said many times before, I think the breeders will appreciate the fact that as a result of you adopting a dog, there is now more space in the shelter for another dog, and more time for the shelter workers to euthanize dogs, so they will step up their bredding rate. They will breed more animals to take up the slack.

(2) And here is a new thought: you are subsidizing the shelter's euthanization program. You are saving the dog that you adopted, from being killed, but (1) another dog will be killed; all you have done is changed which dog will be killed; you haven't reduced the number of dogs that are killed and (2) since breeding is stepped up, and since you gave the shelter some money, there will now be more room in the shelter for 1 more dog than there was before, and 2 dogs will be euthanized instead of one. If you hadn't given the shelter the $20 or whatever it is they ask, they wouldn't have the money or time to kill 2 dogs.

You are saving the dog that you adopted, from being killed, but (1) another dog will be killed

How so? If the shelter is full then that extra dog is going to get euthanized anyway.

I also fail to see how the existence of shelters increases the demand from breeders.

I think you're making some big jumps in your logic there. To be honest, even though you've attempted to explain it I have no clue how you arrived at the conclusions above.

I'm confused. If you want a dog what should you do then? Steal one from the neighbours?

I think you're making some big jumps in your logic there. To be honest, even though you've attempted to explain it I have no clue how you arrived at the conclusions above.
it makes no sense to me, either.

(1) As i've said many times before, I think the breeders will appreciate the fact that as a result of you adopting a dog, there is now more space in the shelter for another dog, and more time for the shelter workers to euthanize dogs, so they will step up their bredding rate. They will breed more animals to take up the slack.


I don't understand. If you look at breeding as a business, they're selling dogs to make a profit. If less people are buying the dogs, why would they breed more? Wouldn't they just lose money? It makes no sense. They wouldn't say "Oh, there's more room in the shelters, gotta make more dogs so people can abandon them!"

Yes. Breeders don't breed dogs specifically for those shelter spaces you know.

We need shelters. I would rather see a dog with food,water and shelter instead of running the streets and getting hit by a car and suffering. I would rather see people get a dog from a shelter than to buy from a breeder. The adopted shelter dog makes room for another dog in his place,but that new dog has a chance of being adopted also. There are too many dogs in this world and not enough good homes. So why breed more dogs on purpose?...oh I know...for a profit $$$ And by the way, if anyone wants a pure breed dog, there are breed specific rescue groups that go to shelters and take the dogs to their rescue group and try to adopt them out to good homes. I work as a volunteer at my local shelter and I see lots of dogs getting adopted everyday and it is much less expensive if you sign a document to spay/nuter you'r new shelter pup. which will result in less puppys and less dogs brought into the shelter. And we see alot of pure breed dogs in the shelter who probably came from a breeder anyway. Stop the breeding!!! Save the unfortunate dogs who all deserve a wonderful home. I got my two beautiful dogs that were pound bound but I was lucky enough to intercept and adopt them. They are spayed and neutered and that means no unexpected pregnancys in our home. :)

Michael [QUOTE=Michael]How so? If the shelter is full then that extra dog is going to get euthanized anyway.


You seem to be agreeing with what I said.

I also fail to see how the existence of shelters increases the demand from breeders.

What do you mean by "demand from breeders." ??

Breeders keep up production. They breed lots of dogs. In addition, dogs are produced when people neither spay nor neuter their dogs, nor keep their dogs apart. Dogs obviously have been produced far, far in excess of the demand.

Kiz I'm confused. If you want a dog what should you do then? Steal one from the neighbours?

You are proving my point. It is not desire to help reduce dog-suffering that drives dog adoptions, it is simply that people "want a dog." What I am saying is that to reduce dog-suffering, people need to stop wanting dogs. When I was 8 years old, I wanted a monkey, and I wanted a dog. But now I believe, like most people, that owning a wild animal is not such a good idea. Eventually I also came to believe that owning a domestic animal is not suh a good idea either, and that the very act of domesticating animals, is not such a good idea. I no longer want a monkey. I no longer want a dog.

I actually see a lot of sense in this. I honestly don't think it's ever really ethical to purchase an animal. It doesn't matter if it's called an adoption fee, or whether you're outright buying an animal. Is it ever really right? People who pay "adoption fees" (as the shelter nearest me calls them) are still buying an animal. Although the shelter near me doesn't euthanize animals.

I think many people here have questioned how ethical it is to have domestic animals. I question it too. In this way, I guess my previous argument rings hollow--there really isn't any moral conflict between keeping animals with you and eating other animals, because both are inherently speciesist. This is something I certainly struggle with. Because honestly, if you keep animals with you, it is mostly for your benefit. The fact that a small minority of people realize that animals kept with them need to be treated well while denouncing the majority who don't treat them as well as they should be treated doesn't change the fact that it's still weird. Still unnatural. I know people here say that they love their dogs and cats, but others here have said that if it came down to it, they still value human life more. And that's the commonly held belief.

In the anti-outdoor-cat thread, I realized a few things. I realized that human beings restrict the movement of their companion animals. They keep them indoors according to their wishes and desires. They do not consult their cats. Cats and dogs have little or no say in the environment in which they live. They cannot decide whether or not they want their human companion to relocate, have a child, or add more animals to the household. I was most acutely affected by this when my sister, who already had two older cats, decided to bring two kittens into their lives. I feel that this was a selfish act on her part, and others would do the same, not really thinking. People say that they want a dog or a cat--but really, why? Would it be impossible to live a complete, fulfilling life without keeping animals in your home? I believe not, but I understand that questioning the practice of keeping animals will put many here on the defensive, as so many here do it, seeing no conflict whatsoever between it and animal rights.

Think. People have cats declawed (for their convenience), keep dogs outside in the freezing cold on leashes tied to the fence. Perhaps you people here don't do it, but you bemoan others who do. However, I think it would be inaccurate to say that you have never treated your companion animals in a way that is less than you would do for your human companions. I think the real problem with having animal companions is that their status is not really defined. Also, nobody can really come up with a good reason for having them. It's true that people who have cats and dogs live longer, because these animals have a calming affect on humans, but what do they get in return? I remember a show about a man who gave his life for his dog. This is certainly not the case with most people.

What are your companion animals to you? Many of you use the child analogy, but this can't be. The love that overflows from your heart upon having a child is not comparable. Some of you, of course, will say that it is, but it's just not so. There isn't that biological attachment that immediately puts their needs and comforts above your own. If there was, you wouldn't keep getting more cats, getting a puppy when you already have a cat, or moving yourself around all the time, traumatizing animals.

All I can see is that somehow, arbitrarily, Nature saw fit that humans should kill and eat pigs, cows, and chickens. Somehow, it was seen as okay that humans should keep in their homes cats and dogs. I wonder if cats and dogs aren't victims in their own right. It is to the point that a cat or dog living on their own is "stray" or "feral." People think that cats and dogs belong with people. And sadly, cats and dogs are now helpless without their human owners. So I wonder, for those of you who say your pets love you, if it isn't really desperation and the need for food and clean water that keeps them by your side?

I have a ton of thoughts on this. But I am really inclined to agree with soilman. And buying is cat is buying a cat--no matter how it goes down.

I actually see a lot of sense in this. I honestly don't think it's ever really ethical to purchase an animal. It doesn't matter if it's called an adoption fee, or whether you're outright buying an animal. Is it ever really right? People who pay "adoption fees" (as the shelter nearest me calls them) are still buying an animal. Although the shelter near me doesn't euthanize animals.


I know! Those shelters are money-making machines! All that profit going to the CEO's of the shelters just makes me sick. Meanwhile the animals are neglected and starved. :no: If they really cared about animals they'd take in every single one and would pay for it out of their own pocket and then just give them away for free.

And no-kill shelters aren't perfect either. Some will take animals to another shelter where they are euthanized. And shelters that don't euthanize often fill up, meaning they have to reject new animals, meaning they often get dumped or taken to another shelter.

I think that soilman does have a certain point against taking animals from shelters, but the point is much too weak and theoretical to compare to the problems of shelter overpopulation etc.

The point is that if people who would not otherwise get companion animals take animals from shelters, they are, in a sense, "cleaning after" the people who **** up the situation by supporting breeders. This can motivate people to think, "hey, the situation isn't so bad after all, so we can buy/breed more animals, since the abandoned ones are well cared for".

However, this point says nothing against the fact that people who would otherwise buy from breeders should be convinced to adopt instead, because this lowers the demand for bred animals.

And, like I said, the above point is extremely weak and theoretical.

I know! Those shelters are money-making machines! All that profit going to the CEO's of the shelters just makes me sick. Meanwhile the animals are neglected and starved. :no: If they really cared about animals they'd take in every single one and would pay for it out of their own pocket and then just give them away for free.

And no-kill shelters aren't perfect either. Some will take animals to another shelter where they are euthanized. And shelters that don't euthanize often fill up, meaning they have to reject new animals, meaning they often get dumped or taken to another shelter.

Wow, Michael, this is so cool! We agree on something.

That makes me really sad, to hear about the no-kill shelters. :(

I remember a cat who had only one eye who was not adopted for a long time. Eventually they no longer had his picture up. I thought perhaps he was adopted, but now I realize that probably wasn't the case.

Another thing I detest: animals must be framed in terms of how attractive they are, how friendly they are. A cat who is not exactly beautiful or has been through pain and now shies away from people is deemed less worthy.

I know this because I am a human and yet, other humans like me less because I have been through trauma and sadness, and I am not the happy, fun individual that they would appreciate. If I may steal a line from The Black Stallion:

"I realized that people were not only cruel to horses. They were also thoughless with each other."

I honestly believe that human and animal suffering are closely intertwined, and share many parallels.

My friend's dad adopted a cat who had lost her babies. She gave birth to her kittens and they all died. A human woman whose baby died would be helped, supported. This cat lost her babies--no one bothered to imagine the pain she was in. And yet, still, like a human who is naturally upbeat, she was still a sweet cat, and did not hate humans, even though they were the reason for her suffering (she had been abandoned). To me, this is incredible. Had I been through what she had, knowing me, I would have shut out the world, hating everyone. My point is that she got no support and no love. Many people don't value and love their companion animals. Many people do, but it's compromised by things. I can only assume that people who have cats declawed, for example, love their couch more than their cat. It also makes me think that these people think of a cat as another commodity, like a couch, and not a sentient being.

Argh--this really upsets me. Enough.

I know! Those shelters are money-making machines! All that profit going to the CEO's of the shelters just makes me sick. Meanwhile the animals are neglected and starved. :no: If they really cared about animals they'd take in every single one and would pay for it out of their own pocket and then just give them away for free.
.

Are you serious? Or are you being sarcastic? I thought you were being sarcastic then MP replied to you as if you were serious... :confused: Money-making machines? Shelters? Jeeze, if you were serious you gotta take a harder look at what you are smoking.

Kiz

You are proving my point. It is not desire to help reduce dog-suffering that drives dog adoptions, it is simply that people "want a dog." What I am saying is that to reduce dog-suffering, people need to stop wanting dogs.

Oh.. that makes a lot more sense to me now. I was understaning your hypothesis from the point of view of "someone who is going to get a dog anyway". But still, we've got to take care of the dogs that are around already, and I'd rather the "want a dog" crowd got one from a shelter, rather than from a breeder, which creates the demand for more purpose-bred dogs.

Are you serious? Or are you being sarcastic? I thought you were being sarcastic then MP replied to you as if you were serious... :confused: Money-making machines? Shelters? Jeeze, if you were serious you gotta take a harder look at what you are smoking.

I'm insulted that you would even need to ask. :evil:

Then I appologise for the insult.

I'm insulted that you would even need to ask. :evil:

Oh well. I guess we don't agree then. :-/

I'm still wondering how getting dogs from shelters equals breeders breeding more dogs to "pick up slack".

Over 7 million pets are put to *sleep* each year. Adopting a pet from a shelter saves a life. Most shelter fees go towards the medical fees, food, and money it costs to run a shelter. I have found several privately run shelters, that are no kill, and the people who run them have big hearts, and have devoted their time and their lives to caring for unwanted pets and finding them new, loving homes. I have nothing but the highest amount of respect for people who work/run shelter groups. The point is, the problem of over population exists. So if we can do something to help, we must. In a perfect world, there would be no unwanted pets. I'm sorry but the world is far from perfect. :) That being said, Max says WOOF WOOF and he's glad i saved him from being sent to the pound and yes he talks to me : )~

I didn't want to start a debate on the rightness or wrongness of owning animals, only on whether obtaining animals from shelters is better than obtaining them from breeders, or if so, how much better.

Elena I'm still wondering how getting dogs from shelters equals breeders breeding more dogs to "pick up slack".

I can't quite but my finger on why, but I feel that it is there. I'll give explaining it a try tho. Basicly, it is because breeders are not as profit-motivated as people think. Profit is not the only thing that motivates them to breed animals. They generally just like breeding animals, and would probably find some reason to do so, if they couldn't make money out of it. It is interesting that while food production has moved from small farms to big agribusiness, in the area of plant food and plant breeding, and animal food and animal breeding, production of pet animals has stayed in the area of family or even individual business. There are a few larger breeders, but nothing like the huge plant-production conglamorates. Also, unsupervised breeding goes on at a nuisance rate. This occasionally happens with plants too -- with domestic plants brought to a new area, that breed and flourish on their own, and become a nuisance. sometimes more than an annoying weed, and a plant that negatively impacts people's lives. But nothing on the scale of the negative impact of excess domestic pet animals.

I think sevenseas helped with the explanation [the existence of shelters] can motivate people to think, "hey, the situation isn't so bad after all, so we can buy/breed more animals, since the abandoned ones are well cared for". Or, at least, now allowed to become a bad a nuisane as they could become, i there was no shelter.

I might add that towns all have shelters paid for by tax money. It costs everyone money to clean up after the breeders and people who don't prevent their animals from breeding. In my area, the animal shelter is right next to the town dump, which I think communicates something about its function. Those excess animals are produced by people for the same reason people produce litter -- they don't dispose of things properly. So tax payers have to pay for it. Employees are civil service workers. Often there are some who have cushy political-appointee jobs, where they make a lot of money and do very little. Others work hard -- but have the job because they contributed time and money to the party -- they aren't exactly the people who scored highest on the civil service test!

Even with shelters to clean up after people who "dispose of their waste improperly" (which is the way the town looks at things, not the way I look at things) dogs and cats are still a nuisance. Even properly licensed dogs are a nuisance. I keep on wondering why we are so scrupulous about flushing human waste down a toilet and hiding it in underground septic tanks, while we allow dogs and cats to poop on the ground. If someone observed me pooping on a neighbors lawn, I would be arrested immediately. People would really be incensed. If my dog, if I had one, did it, most people would be incensed neither at me, nor at my dog. If I did it I would be contributing to disease. If my dog did it no-one seems to care. Cetainly, dog an cat poop is no less disease-causing than human poop. And in some suburban areas, the sheer amount of dogs and cats, by weight, is getting close to the weight of all the people in the area. There is almost as much poop on the ground, as there is in the septic tanks

The main problem with an adult human voiding waste outside is that it's a gross display of public nudity, which is illegal. If you do it in the woods or the side of the road where no one sees you, it's fine, but you can't drop your shorts out in a park where people can see you. I just wanted to point that out. Dogs are cleaned up after, and they're already naked to begin with.

I see what you're saying about breeders, though. It wouldn't be purposeful, it'd be an increase out of negligence and a love for breeding? So not really directly having anything to do with the shelters, as it probably happens anyway.

Nothing in this thread makes any bit of logical sense.

So, to keep the thread on topic, what I think we should encourage shelters to do is open up restaurants where they serve the dogs and cats as meals rather than adopting them out or euthanizing them for no reason. That would solve all the problems brought up in this nonsensical thread.

If breeders bred animals just because they liked breeding them rather than to make a profit, that would simply mean they were thoughtless, rather than both greedy and thoughtless.

I don't really understand much of this thread either. Logical gaps out the wazoo.

Nice nod to Swift, kpickell...

elena The main problem with an adult human voiding waste outside is that it's a gross display of public nudity, which is illegal. If you do it in the woods or the side of the road where no one sees you, it's fine,

That is not true, except in wilderness areas, and very rural areas. In all suburban areas and of course urban areas, the main problem with voiding human wast outdoors is that it is a health hazard, not to mention an esthetic unpleasantness.

"If breeders bred animals just because they liked breeding them rather than to make a profit, that would simply mean they were thoughtless, rather than both greedy and thoughtless."

First of all, most of the dog overpop is not due to breeders, it is due to lack of control of the situation by dog owners who are not in the dog breeding business, and by stray dogs.

It isn't a matter of breeders being thoughtless; it is just a matter of their thoughts running into different areas than the thoughts of non breeders. To breeders, the overpopulation prob is not as big a deal to them, then it is to people who don't like constantly looking on the ground for dog poop. Dog breeders, an owners, don't mind so much, or don't mind tracking a little dog poop onto their carpeting now and then. I absolutely hate it.