Hrm, I'm normally against restricting a free market but saving the lives of animals transcend that. In a sense this isn't different to making companies pay to clean up their waste, except in this case the 'waste' is unwanted animal life.
On a long enough timeline, every true "free market" is eventually dominated by a *poly - most often, mono- or duo-. "Free market" stands on the same shelf as "Communism" - by definition, it's awesome. In reality, it's a nightmare.
Ideologies often dont make much sense in the real world. The world's leading economies are in fact mixed.
The best way I've found to find truth seems to be the scientific method. Test your ideas and reject the ones that fail.
Ideologies are antithetical to that. But people are smug enough to think they just simply know better and dont need to test and modify their theories of the world.
Economics is just too complex for the scientific method. Feedback loops are very long, nothing is reproducible and you can almost always find a measure by which whatever you are looking at looks good or bad. But yes. All successful economies are mixed economies that have evolved by pragmatic adjustments and not by ideology.
European here. Fascinated to find out why anyone - with our huge issues of nations with completely different values sharing the same currency, Islamic terrorism, and both a harder left and a harder right than the US - thinks we have better governance.
> every true "free market" is eventually dominated by a *poly - most often, mono- or duo-
If a market is monopolized (or collusion occurs) it ceases to become free. Part of ensuring a free market (that's sometimes overlooked, particularly by some politicians if they're paid for by AT&T, Comcast, Google, etc) is making sure they don't happen.
That has a very simple and obvious answer: it depends whether the regulation makes the market more or less free. Promoting competition is good, setting artificial prices for things is not.
I under stand the feel-good driving force behind this. But isn’t this essentially just a protection racket baring pet stores from competing against dog breeders?
I'm not sure where you're coming from. Where do pet stores got their animals from before this law? If anything it's the opposite, providing a solution for pet shelters that have too many animals they can't rehome.
I think he's saying that now people would go to the breeders directly instead of the pet stores to buy pets, which I assume isn't disallowed by the law.
I mean dog breeders are no better or worse than drug dealers. There's bad ones, good ones, there's some with better product and some with worse product. Dogs and cats are property and don't have some natural rights or some such nonsense.
I see them as one and the same. Breeders/Mills are a blight, but I don't see this doing anything but rewarding the worst of them with a bigger illegal market.
I disagree. This move will put shelter pets in front of more people who otherwise might not even known about the horrible conditions that led to an animal being at the pet store.
Those people who wanted something very specific will likely have gone to some breeder anyway.
I mean, they can. Breeders often focus on a specific breed (or breeds) of dog, and puppy mills will usually claim to do the same, even though many will crossbreed and not tell you. Shelter pups are likely to be more mutt-y than what you'd find at a mill or breeder, often with 5 or 6 different breeds of dog in it.
Is there actually any reason why we should allow pet stores to sell animals at all? Even outside of radical animal rights, it seems like a breeding ground for terrible conditions for the animals.
In Ontario, an increasing number of pet stores house rescue pets on a temporary basis. At my local Pet Smart, there's a room of cats, 6 or 7. Mostly cohabitating. And every few days they bring half a dozen more. Those little floofs move fast, even the old ones.
Whenever I'm nearby I go in just to see the cats, but also to see all the "I've been adopted!" signs, that seem to make me feel just a bit better about things.
I certainly wouldn't call the conditions anything less than "acceptable". It's not a palace but they're not caged. They're in a maybe 8x8 room full of cat toys, blankets, water, food, gyms, etc.
Pets provide happiness for many people, and pet stores make more animals available as pets. Probably including options you wouldn't find at a shelter. And I personally don't see the harm.
(Disclaimer: I have never bought a pet at a pet store)
For those who didn't get the reference to Omelas (including myself) it appears to be to "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" 'a 1973 work of short philosophical fiction by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. With deliberately both vague and vivid descriptions, the narrator depicts a summer festival in the utopian city of Omelas, whose prosperity depends on the perpetual misery of a single child'. [0]
If you want to dive into the philosophy... What is the relevant counterfactual? If the alternative to animals living in conditions below your standards is no animals at all, (or worse conditions), then I find pet stores to be morally good. If the counterfactual is happily living animals, or a world that is better in some other way, then you have an argument for me. But does banning pet stores create a place for happy animals? Or does it have some other effect that makes something else better about the world?
Me and people I've known growing up have found many, many friends in foster homes, vet offices, shelters, the street. Where profit motive doesn't really exist...
One thing that worries me about pet stores is that there is very little incentive for them to be on the lookout for animal torturing sadists. I'm really not sure what the solution is to that.
Hmmm, I don't know. I imagine it's harder to sell an animal with a PTSD-affected personality, so from that perspective, they're incentivized not to harm animals. Did you have something in mind where harming the animal makes it easier to sell?
It's easier to sell animals to people who torture them to death and buy another one like they're a disposable toy. This is a real problem that shelters and breeders deal with.
It's also something people should be aware of when selling or giving away a pet on craigslist.
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This is a great move. Many pets sold in a pet store come from puppy mills which are terrible places. Even if a person wants a particular breed, you can almost always find a specific rescue. Rescues also typically stop people from doing stupid things like bringing an English bulldog into a house with small children. Which in turn ends up putting another animal into a shelter or rescue.
My wife volunteers for a bulldog rescue, and we have adopted 3 French bulldogs (in addition to many cats over the years). If my wife had her way we would live on a farm and adopt every animal in need.
What makes a English bulldog different in temperament from an French one or some other breed of bulldog? One licks up spilled tea and the other licks up spilled wine?
Edit: I actually want to know the answer to the first question.
English bulldogs tend to be bigger and clumsy which leads to accidentally hurting small children. Keep in mind too, that even though their fighting temperament has been bred out they were originally bred to fight bulls[1][2]. A bigger dog with strong jaws can seriously injure a small child in a single act of aggression.
For these same reasons I also wouldn't have a pit bull in the house with a small child.
Meanwhile, I grew up with a pit bull / bull mastiff mix that we rescued. Nicest dog in the world (he sure looked mean, though, on account of him being a giant pit bull).
Of course, it all depends on training. I'm with you on not believing an adult rescue in a house with a small child is a good idea. One you rescued as a puppy and made sure was well-trained, though? Sure, sounds like the perfect babysitter in canine form.
This is true of most (probably all) dogs, of course. Smaller dogs thankfully do less damage on average, but they also tend to be a lot more inherently aggressive ("Napoleon complex" and all that; they have to be as a survival strategy). Especially as rescues, they're the ones more likely to bite small children, since even small children are bigger than them and more likely to severely injure them.
Those are two very different breeds. They have been bred into caricatures of a sort, incapable of doing their original intended job. They can't even breed on their own as they need c-sections to deliver pups.
The American bulldog is a better example of a dog that is still capable of it's original purpose.
Please stop and think before you write. Of course you do want the state to dictate sources. I suspect you want want your food to be regulated, your buildings to be engineered, your planes to be certified. Society places all kinds of restrictions on sources.
It is also finally time we start moving away from pets being "products" and towards them being living things.
Not the person you were replying to but I want my food, my buildings, etc to have acceptable performance. What is acceptable can roughly be summed up as "safe to eat and safe to inhabit" and I don't really care how that's achieved so long as the negative impact of whatever means are used is minimized. I have no special love or hatred for regulation.
Regulation is also not a binary yes or no, on or off value. Something can be regulated not at all or regulated to an infinite degree.
Regulation has a lot of negative externalities it places upon society and we need to be cognizant of those trade-offs when we use it.
I'm generally very supportive of regulation that mandates transparency or that information be made available so that the consumer can better make their own choices (nutrition facts, those energy usage stickers on appliances, etc, are not perfect but solidly a net win IMO) because it tends to have very little by the way of negative trade-offs. I would really prefer to see CA try some sort of softer approach that nudges consumers toward the "right" pet purchasing decisions rather than going for the ban hammer right away.
Take your own advice as well. Government regulation is not always good. FDA is not a fantastic organization as which you allude to.
Planes being certified is not a controlling of source. You know that you can apply for a experimental license and can fly experimental airplanes without having to do your so called "certified".
Licenses and certifications don't mean anything. The state licenses drivers all the time, doesn't mean it is safer by doing that. Malpractice still occurs even when doctors are licensed. Accidents still happen with government regulation.
> Even if a person wants a particular breed, you can almost always find a specific rescue.
Is this true at a city level? There are many popular breeds and it’s hard to imagine that there would be sufficient inventory at all/most times.*
> Rescues also typically stop people from doing stupid things like bringing an English bulldog into a house with small children.
How so? Maybe if you adopt from a diligent rescue organization, but if the only organization in contact with the customer is a commercial pet store, the diligent vetting will likely go out the window.
Note: I’m all in favor of rescue animals, and several family members have adopted rescues from petsmart’s years-old program. I’m just not sure statewide legislation is the way to go here.
If a buyer is set on a particular breed, then the rescue location shouldn't matter. And yes, sometimes the buyer may have to wait for an animal.
Commercial pet store != rescue organization. I used a rescue organization as an example of a way to find a specific breed if the local pet store or ASPCA didn't have one. Rescue organizations are also typically diligent as I noted.
At many rescues the interviews are ran by people who are temporarily caring for the dog who are looking for reasons to disqualify you.
The approval process is completely arbitrary and far too invasive. The president of the ASPCA was turned down by a rescue a few years ago, and he wrote about the process.
I completely agree that some of the processes are broken. Sometimes it's because of selfish reasons as you noted, but others are people trying to do what's best for the animal.
Rescues are by no means perfect, but we should be careful not to ignore the good they try to accomplish.
I mean, should they not be looking for reasons to disqualify you? Ain't finding red flags the point of the interview process?
Sure, the interviewers would do well to relax a bit and not reject applicants for selfish reasons, but ultimately their job is to put a pet in a home with the best interests of that pet in mind. If even the ASPCA president can't sail through that process, then that's at least somewhat reassuring that pets ain't going to be placed in abusive/neglectful homes.
If all rescue interviewers were doing was trying to avoid abuse, I'd agree with your sentiment.
But from what I've read and the experiences myself and my friends and family have had, rescue interviewers are more often than not looking for perfect homes not simply trying to avoid abusive/neglectful homes.
Is it better to place a dog with someone who works 8 hours a day, or to euthanize it? (there are many people who'd say euthanize, but I disagree)
Right, but if they do have applicants who are able to devote full attention to the well-being of the dog, then prioritizing those applicants is probably in the best interests of the dog. Yeah, sucks for the person who does work a full-time job, but if you're unable to take work off (at least at first) to spend time with your dog (especially while your dog is getting used to its new home/family/"pack"), you might not be the right fit.
>Right, but if they do have applicants who are able to devote full attention to the well-being of the dog, then prioritizing those applicants is probably in the best interests of the dog.
That's the case for a few highly sought-after breeds, but not the vast majority.
If it were the case that demand exceeds the supply for unwanted dogs, there would be no need for rescue organizations.
>but if you're unable to take work off (at least at first) to spend time with your dog (especially while your dog is getting used to its new home/family/"pack"), you might not be the right fit.
There definitely aren't enough jobless people to handle the supply of unwanted dogs. Kenneling a dog is much more stressful than moving a dog to a new home. Unless you have a particularly damaged dog (which could be the case of course), there's no need to take off work for more than a weekend (provided you aren't gone too long , and you have a fence or someone to walk the dog). It's a dog not a baby.
"If it were the case that demand exceeds the supply for unwanted dogs"
It ain't just about demand; it's about demand among those with reasonably-provable ability to actually care for a dog.
"Kenneling a dog is much more stressful than moving a dog to a new home."
That's not guaranteed, or even statistically likely. If that were as true as you seem to believe, then these animals wouldn't have ended up in a shelter at all; they would continue to exist in abusive/neglectful homes, because obviously that's better than being in a kennel, right?
The interview process is meant to ensure (with a reasonable amount of certainty) that the dog's not going to end up right back in the shelter (or - worse - not end up in the shelter due to a false sense of trust in an abusive or neglectful new owner). Making that "easier" for the applicant increases that risk.
Even with that risk aside, the dog's going from being in a kennel situation (with a lot of other dogs and different people present) to being comparatively alone. That's a pretty sudden and potentially-hard adjustment. Sure, some dogs are able to adjust in a weekend (with or without other dogs as companions); for most, that's probably cutting things pretty short.
"It's a dog not a baby."
It's a reasonably-intelligent animal that's prone to experience PTSD from neglect/abuse. Its well-being is more complex than just ticking off boxes, even for a dog that seems well-adjusted at first glance.
I think right now you're operating on the assumption of a best-case (or at least better-than-average-case) scenario. The people who evaluate adopters of pets have to also consider worst-case, since that's, you know, their job. Sometimes they can be a bit overzealous, yes, but it's not like they'll permanently bar you from ever adopting if there are fixable issues with you adopting an animal at that particular moment in time.
>It ain't just about demand; it's about demand among those with reasonably-provable ability to actually care for a dog.
That's the problem. I don't have the same standard for what is "reasonably-provable ability to actually care for a dog" that dog rescue volunteers tend to, and I don't think they are better qualified to determine that. In fact I think that because of confirmation bias and their attachment to the dogs, they are the worst people to make that decision objectively.
>That's not guaranteed, or even statistically likely. If that were as true as you seem to believe, then these animals wouldn't have ended up in a shelter at all; they would continue to exist in abusive/neglectful homes, because obviously that's better than being in a kennel, right?
Your conclusion doesn't follow. It can both be the case that taking the average dog to a kennel for boarding is more stressful than moving it to a new home on average, and that some percentage of dogs will end up abandoned.
Many rescue organizations even buy dogs directly from breeders.
>The interview process is meant to ensure (with a reasonable amount of certainty) that the dog's not going to end up right back in the shelter (or - worse - not end up in the shelter due to a false sense of trust in an abusive or neglectful new owner). Making that "easier" for the applicant increases that risk.
What is that risk? I guarantee you rescue organization volunteers aren't using risk models to adjust the difficulty of their interview processes. They can just randomly decide that need to work from home, have a fence with at least half an acre of grass, have lived in the same place for 5 years, and have a perfect credit score--despite not knowing whether those things are necessary or even well correlated with dog well being outcomes.
>Even with that risk aside, the dog's going from being in a kennel situation (with a lot of other dogs and different people present) to being comparatively alone.
Dogs in kennels spend a lot of time alone in cages. Moving to a new home in most cases, the dog will get more attention, not less.
>It's a reasonably-intelligent animal that's prone to experience PTSD from neglect/abuse. Its well-being is more complex than just ticking off boxes, even for a dog that seems well-adjusted at first glance.
It's an animal that has evolved to read human emotions. This ability makes us much more likely to anthropomorphize dogs. There are complications, but most of the time it's well being really is just--did I tick off the boxes, does the dog seem fine, and does it have any disruptive behavior problems. This is coming from someone who cared for many healthy and not so healthy dogs through the end of their lives--including an 18 year old dog who was mostly blind, deaf and incontinent for many years (and someone who was responsible for caring for numerous litters of puppies when my parents ran a small poodle breeding operation when i was a kid).
>Sometimes they can be a bit overzealous, yes, but it's not like they'll permanently bar you from ever adopting if there are fixable issues with you adopting an animal at that particular moment in time.
Many of the problems that will bar you from adopting are things that aren't easy to fix. Like, you need to work from home, you have kids, or your yard isn't big enough.
>also consider worst-case,
That's the problem, rescue workers are suffering from a serious case of confirmation bias. They only see the results of worst case scenarios, they don't know what the average case is.
> I don't have the same standard for what is "reasonably-provable ability to actually care for a dog" that dog rescue volunteers tend to
That is indeed the problem. The complaint here seems to be that your standards are lower than theirs. That doesn't always mean their standards are too high; it could very well mean your standards are too low.
> I don't think they are better qualified to determine that
These people are (hopefully) trained specifically to determine that. It's possible you might happen to have even more training or experience in that regard, but most people don't.
> their attachment to the dogs
If attachment was the primary factor behind them rejecting your applications, they'd adopt outright (which does happen) instead of wasting your time. I suppose it's possible that they might have to have a certain number of rejections from the general public before volunteers/staff are eligible, and similarly possible that there are volunteers who don't qualify to adopt (though I'd question whether they're qualified to volunteer).
Most volunteers and paid personnel with whom I've interacted seem to be painfully aware that they can't take in every animal in need, and thus have to take comfort in animals going to good homes. Keyword there is good homes, though.
> Many rescue organizations even buy dogs directly from breeders.
That'd be surprising, since it makes no economic sense. It's possible (probable, even) that breeders might be discarding dogs they can't sell (this is how my mom got one of her two beagles; she couldn't get pregnant, so the breeder was trying to get rid of her), but buying healthy salable pups is unlikely (and in fact would now be illegal in California, per the article that catalyzed this whole discussion). Not to mention shelters tend to be overcrowded as is; outright buying more dogs is only going to make that worse.
I mean, I'm sure it's theoretically possible, but that seems like the sort of extraordinary assertion that would require extraordinary evidence.
> I guarantee you rescue organization volunteers aren't using risk models to adjust the difficulty of their interview processes.
I can't speak to all shelters, but at least from what I've seen there tends to be some kind of rubric for evaluating whether or not someone is suitable to adopt a particular dog, probably baked into the actual application (and/or the application gets fed directly into that rubric). There's probably room for bias, but it ain't like it's the wild wild west, either.
> Dogs in kennels spend a lot of time alone in cages. Moving to a new home in most cases, the dog will get more attention, not less.
They also get a fair amount of time not alone. At the very least you have volunteers walking the dogs daily (or more!). That's usually done with multiple dogs at once for efficiency's sake.
> they don't know what the average case is.
I'd imagine there are relatively few animal shelter personnel (paid or otherwise) who haven't themselves already raised animals in any capacity.
> They only see the results of worst case scenarios
And their primary job is to prevent those worst case scenarios from happening again. If the people who always see worst-case scenarios (and who are either trained or in close contact with those who are trained to identify worst-case scenarios) think that you raise enough red flags to look like a worst-case scenario, then is it possible that maybe - just maybe - they ain't wrong to be hesitant in letting you take home a dog?
That's not to say you're a bad person or anything, or that you're incapable of properly raising an animal (it doesn't sound like either of those things are true); rather, there seems to be something beyond "being a normal human being" that is raising a red flag. I don't know enough about your specific...
> I don't think they are better qualified to determine that
These people are (hopefully) trained specifically to determine that. It's possible you might happen to have even more training or experience in that regard, but most people don't.
Trained by whom, and to what standards. In most cases there’s woefully inadequate oversight and little credentialing required to conduct adoption interviews.
>If attachment was the primary factor behind them rejecting your applications, they'd adopt outright (which does happen) instead of wasting your time.
That happens frequently. It’s one of the reasons many rescue organizations have a bad reputation. Stories of foster “parents” adopting dogs after applicants have already wasted time on the application process are common.
But that’s not what I mean by attachment. I meant that their standards are too high because they are emotionally attached and aren’t looking at the situation objectively.
>but buying healthy salable pups is unlikely (and in fact would now be illegal in California, per the article that catalyzed this whole discussion).
No, California law did nothing to outlaw breeders or make it illegal to buy from breeders. It only affects retail locations. Buying from a breeders is perfectly fine.
>I mean, I'm sure it's theoretically possible, but that seems like the sort of extraordinary assertion that would require extraordinary evidence.
>I can't speak to all shelters, but at least from what I've seen there tends to be some kind of rubric for evaluating whether or not someone is suitable to adopt a particular dog, probably baked into the actual application (and/or the application gets fed directly into that rubric).
There's probably room for bias, but it ain't like it's the wild wild west, either.
Rescues are completely non-transparent and based on the rescues I’m familiar with are basically ran like the wild west.
Your experience may be different, and of course it would be. There is little regulation or oversight. The quality is so varied from rescue to rescue--that’s a huge part of the problem.
>They also get a fair amount of time not alone. At the very least you have volunteers walking the dogs daily (or more!).
The average person is going to spend more than the amount of time a dog gets during a daily walk. And just like homes, the contact time a dog may get in a kennel is is variable. If you are going to compare the average case, a dog in a private home is going to get more contact time than one in the average kennel.
> they don't know what the average case is.
I'd imagine there are relatively few animal shelter personnel (paid or otherwise) who haven't themselves already raised animals in any capacity.
They don’t see that as the average case, they see that as the best case, which is balanced out by all of the worst case scenarios they see.
>their primary job is to prevent those worst case scenarios from happening again.
That’s not their primary job. If that were their primary job, they would euthanize every dog they got and not risk letting anyone adopt any of them.
>If the people who always see worst-case scenarios (and who are either trained or in close contact with those who are trained to identify worst-case scenarios) think that you raise enough red flags to look like a worst-case scenario, then is it possible that maybe - just maybe - they ain't wrong to be hesitant in letting you take home a dog?
Or seeing only worst case scenarios makes them paranoid.
>That's not to say you're a bad person or anything, or that you're incapable of properly raising an animal (it doesn't sound like either of those things ...
One of the reasons that so many dogs end up in shelters and rescues is that people think this way. What people need to realize is that in many ways a dog is just like a baby that never becomes self sufficient.
> If it were the case that demand exceeds the supply for unwanted dogs, there would be no need for rescue organizations.
Rescue organizations typically have more applications than dogs (very different than a general shelter). In these cases the organization is really a matching service. Older dogs are hard to place no matter what, particularly ones that already have health problems from years of neglect, abuse, and breeding.
>One of the reasons that so many dogs end up in shelters and rescues is that people think this way. What people need to realize is that in many ways a dog is just like a baby that never becomes self sufficient.
No analogy is perfect and you shouldn't attempt to apply them beyond the scope of the intended similarities. A dog isn't like a baby in that babies require many hours of attention per day. Dogs do not, and the vast majority of dogs are fine being alone for a few hours.
>Rescue organizations typically have more applications than dogs (very different than a general shelter).
In my area the shelter has been taken over completely by a rescue organization. They conduct the rescue type perfect fit required interviews for all adoptions. They definitely do not have more applications than dogs.
> “If my wife had her way we would live on a farm and adopt every animal in need.”
me too! i grew up out in the country for a period of my youth and the thing i really miss is the animals.
and good on her for volunterring! i adopted a dog last year and just started volunteering in the kitten nursery of a local rescue organization (they’re so cute!). volunteering (and then fostering) is a good way to see the range of animals and their behaviors before you make a commitment and also streamlines the adoption process.
Why don't they force the breeders to have better conditions for the animals, and include livestock and lab animals along with it?
By doing it this way they aren't acknowledging there is a demand for certain breeds of dogs unlikely to be found at a shelter. The market is going to find a way around this, either by dealing with the dealers' directly (or through some sort of "finder") or going out of state.
Either way, the poor conditions for animals are going to continue in some shape or form, and no one is going to be able to set up a breeder farm that treats its animals ethically without finding a way to sell their animals, which means jumping through yet another hoop.
It's just dumb, kind of insulting to the voters, and I suspect the politicians for this were intending to avoid taking the heavy donors of the farming/pharmaceutical industries to task while still trying to cast themselves in a progressive light.
> Why don't they force the breeders to have better conditions for the animals, and include livestock and lab animals along with it?
Breeding dogs isn't hard / has a low barrier to entry. You need a male and a female and a place to house the puppies. Conditions could be generally terrible. Enforcing licensing is unrealistic - who's going to do the inspections? Who's going to pay the inspectors?
Further, there are too many dogs and cats, period. Disincentivizing commercial breeding (making it harder to sell) is a _good_ thing, and rerouting some of the animals who would be killed by shelters who can no longer accomodate them is also a good thing.
The point about inspection overhead / regulatory capture is a good one.
Regulation is difficult because of unintended consequences. So given a choice between "ban pet stores from selling bred animals" and "create a new bureaucracy to oversee animal conditions" (then pairing it with something like a transfer tax), the former is a lighter market touch.
And if we want to get realpolitik, mongrels tend to have stronger genetics than pure-breds ("Life finds a way"), so this is probably long-term good for pets in general.
I find the overpopulation argument really interesting in how it compares to similar issues:
1. There's too many humans, killing humans to reduce the population isn't really a palatable solution to anyone.
2. There's too many cats/dogs, killing them seems much more reasonable to some, and awful to others. They're in the sweet spot between family and wildlife.
3. Pests (deer, rabbits, etc) are over-populating, killing them is pretty much A-OK.
Personally I see a cultural issue akin to wastage. Especially in the US, we love to buy and throw stuff out all the time. I would hypothesize that people who buy/rescue mutts and less desirable breeds are more likely to abandon them after some time. Others who spend thousands of dollars on a specific breed they like will be more likely to keep it the duration of its life.
I see the solution as more of a tax. Stop letting people get cats/dogs for $20. I also don't think inspections are unreasonable. The government already inspects half of the industries, what's one more?
The insinuation that people that adopt “less desireable” animals are less responsible is verging on insulting. The people that I have met that are working for neglected animals are some of the most dedicated and compassionate people that I know. Meanwhile, on any given day you can find “fancy” breeds that have been abandoned at the municipal shelter by owners that couldn’t be bothered to accomodate them.
>Meanwhile, on any given day you can find “fancy” breeds that have been abandoned at the municipal shelter by owners that couldn’t be bothered to accomodate them.
At least in my area, any expensive breeds (any pure breed that's not a Chihuahua or Pit Bull really) are scooped up by rescues almost immediately. Then if you want to adopt one, you have to go through an interview processes ran by people who are temporarily caring for the dog who are looking for reasons to disqualify you.
The approval process is completely arbitrary and far too invasive. The president of the ASPCA was turned down by a rescue a few years ago, and he wrote about the process.
In my experience I find that hard to believe, and if true, those rescues are doing a poor job. Everyone that works in animal rescue knows which animals are at high risk of being euthanized, and always prioritize pulling those animals.
Regarding adoption, rescues are more invested in what homes their animals go to because they often are making a promise to take back any animals they take resposibility for. They don’t want animals to go back to the shelter, so any sign of potential issue will get an adoption canceled. Are there false positives? Of course. But a lot of animals going to good homes that would otherwise be killed.
Just looked at my local shelter website. 78 dogs for adoption at the shelter. Not a single pure breed that wasn't a pit bull. And 90% of the dogs were pit bull or pit bull mixes.
>so any sign of potential issue will get an adoption canceled. Are there false positives? Of course.
That's the problem rescue workers are in a poor position to make this determination. They are in a perfect position to suffer from confirmation bias, plus they are too emotionally attached to the dogs.
They need more objective standards. When the Head of the ASPCA can't meet your standards, something is wrong.
>But a lot of animals going to good homes that would otherwise be killed.
And there are rescue organizations that buy dogs from breeders. Sure rescue organizations do a lot of good, but they could be ran a lot better I think they need more oversight.
Actually that not true. You are reducing my logic to an absurd level.
A static price is not a prevention, but a disincentivization. Enabling people to do something they are otherwise economically incapable of doing is how we got the 2008 recession. Granted this is a whole different level, but the point is the same. A functioning economy reflects the value, not the means. And as a result, some are less able than others. A price point that makes it difficult for someone to afford a pet will (presumably) make them think twice before taking on a responsibility they might not be able to handle.
Banning is a strong word, but we should definitely discourage it. Poor unmarried people shitting out kids that the rest of us have to pay for is not something I am a big fan of.
Someone well off with those ideas forgets that he's here only because untold numbers of "poor people" had children up to his lineage -- even when they faced much worse odds than poverty...
If what somebody learnt from life is that "they have to pay for poor people's kids", then indeed some are better for all of us to not have been born in the first place. But those are not necessarily the poor people's kids.
I seriously doubt that a person with $70K/year income is less "equipped to care for an animal" than a person with $10M/year income in any meaningful way.
You'd be surprised. Vet bills can be unexpectedly expensive and a sick or injured pet can run up a thousand dollar vet bill pretty quick. A family with a $70K income and a couple of kids could find that pretty difficult to accomodate into the budget.
We could find terrible dog owners everywhere. Dogs are social animals and their psychological wellbeing and health is related with spending as many time as possible with their family group. Rich people have busy lifes and lack of free time to walk or play with the dog. They can overfeed they animals also to compensate.
Hey look, it's the same arguments against the Nordic model of prostitution laws.
Can you describe the conditions of cats and dogs with today's breeders in a few sentences, instead of just saying "poor"? At least by quoting someone else.
>By doing it this way they aren't acknowledging there is a demand for certain breeds of dogs unlikely to be found at a shelter.
Well, there's a demand for all kinds of things, doesn't mean it should be satisfied (or that "the market will find a way around it" means we should make it open).
If the breeder raises the desired animals, then 'abandons' them in a pen, then they are 'rescued' by the person who usually transports them... that seems like an easy workaround. It's not hard to convert a non-rescue animal into a rescue animal.
Additionally, it sounds like shelters have to be a gobetween, so can't just be a pet store and say, "oh i found a bunch of dogs out back and rescued them and they are for sale."
As far as I understand, ethical breeders who raise dogs with care tend to operate direct already. Have you never heard someone say "I got such-and-such a dog from a breeder"?
The law is specific to pet stores because it is one step removed from the breeder. You can still buy directly from the breeder.
If a person cares about a particular breed they typically buy directly from the breeder anyway. That way they can check on the pedigree of the dog. At the same time they can see the condition of the dogs. The people who buy from pet stores really want a dog similar to a particular breed but don't particularly care about the breeding much less the conditions of the puppies at the puppy mill.
This. Pet stores have zero interest or ability to influence the conditions at a breeder and rarely sell papered animals. They just cash in on trends around certain breeds and will happily sell any animal to a buyer who isn't really that discerning.
My wife & I work with a rescue and the breakdown tends to looks like:
RESCUE ANIMAL
conditions: abysmal when rescued; then the most loving fosters and homes around
breed: "brown dog"
cost: ~ $200-$400 depending on fees
owner: really wants a dog (our screening is quite strict)
PET STORE ANIMAL
conditions: unknown, but lots of rescues come from backyard breeders that willingly or not have terrible conditions
breed: looks like whatever is hot this year (yorkie cross, french bulldog, chocolate lab)
cost: $hundreds to thousands
owner: wants a type of dog but cost, effort or timing prevents planning with a breeder
BREEDER
conditions: usually pretty good if they're a registered breeder or breed, though the females have more litters than
breed: very specialized, registered
cost: $thousands
owner: wants a very specific dog for various reasons, willing to plan 6+ months in advance, disposable income
Interestingly the type of people who adopt rescues are very similar to many of those who buy the expensive breeder animals.
Interesting that you compare this with livestock. Certainly in the EU, the herd animals are all extremely heavily regulated and tracked individually. You can't keep a goat at home without being registered with DEFRA.
It feels a bit panopticon to require all breeding animals to be registered, but technologically it's now quite easy. Allowing neutered animals out of the control system would be a compromise so this doesn't affect the average pet owner.
Many breeds operate breed registries anyway. It's just the "puppy mills" we're trying to do away with.
"International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights requires, within a reasonable number of years, the principle of compulsory education free of charge for all [children]." - Wikipedia
That could also be described as a bit panopticon, but is the counterargument not the same: children and animals should be raised with care, under threat of law, because we can assume in the current world they will suffer otherwise?
Doesn't technically require the panopticon; it's not a mandate for ear-tagging children. It's a lot easier to implement and enforce if you have a database of children but it's not a strict requirement.
People get very easily upset by this kind of child welfare thing, regarding it as distrustful, but it's very necessary.
> “t feels a bit panopticon to require all breeding animals to be registered...”
is “panopticon” now fashionable? in any case, i quibble with your usage here. the panopticon is not merely a tracking apparatus, but an apparatus of self-discipline. it’s function was to control, and it illustrates a systemic application of micro-power (discipline you apply to yourself) on large populations.
that’s why it was insidious and that’s why it was interesting. you’re losing this interesting and essential feautre the way you throw around this word.
but that doesn't fit the situation here anyway. the animals are not being tracked continuously and in every way, but rather, just their existence and general health at a few checkpoints. you are being forced to be good stewards and record keepers of your own bovine, so there are some inspections and certifications of the facilities for example.
these animals are usually meant for (wider) human consumption, so you might disagree, but i don't see that as overly onerous.
People have been buying from out of state forever. I've went with friends to pick up pups at the airport. If you're spending $3,500 on a dog it's not a big deal to have it shipped.
Seems to me, then, that this law punishes the poor who may want easy access to a specific breed, while still allowing the wealthy to do whatever they want. That strikes me as regressive.
Seems to me, then, that this law punishes the poor who may want easy access to a specific breed
Yup, being poor sucks. Have to drive a shitty car instead of a BMW, have to have a mutt instead of a Standard Poodle. The social injustice of it all...
You're not wrong, but this law will still (IMHO) have a positive effect in that it will reduce the number of impulse purchases of non-rescue animals. Also, shortening the supply chain will make it harder for breeders to dump animals with genetic defects on the market without repercussions.
> Can't make up a set of rules, and breeders that don't respect them don't get to send their pets to Californian stores?
I think the weak federal rules that are referenced in the story here are preemptive, so, it's quite possible that California can't adopt stricter rules.
In any case, it's a lot easier to enforce a “sell from shelters only” rule than one that requires state enforcement of standards on out-of-state suppliers.
> By doing it this way they aren't acknowledging there is a demand for certain breeds of dogs unlikely to be found at a shelter.
They are attempting to reduce the abuses by increasing transaction costs by removing the main retail channel; this is not intended to prevent sales of specific breeds by breeders.
> The market is going to find a way around this, either by dealing with the dealers' directly (or through some sort of "finder") or going out of state.
Yeah, people who have an intense desire for a specific breed (or a non-rescue for some non-breed reason) will still have a number of other avenues less convenient than the pet store. That probably won't cut mills out entirely (but it will narrow the convenience advantage they offer over conventional, reputable breeders), but then a solution doesn't have to be total to be an improvement.
Right, the law came about because a majority of people cared about companion animals. It doesn't make people care but it came about because enough people do.
Kind of where my mind went. People who go to shelters know or have a generally good idea they're getting a pet that may or may not have a history.
Sometimes that history is an aggressive one and the animal is going to need a LOT of attention to train out undesirable habits. I have such a dog and we went through such a period.
Is the 17 year old at Petsmart trained for those types of rescue animals? I sure hope so.
Here's the deal: most of the pets for sale in pet stores come from industrial breeders whose primary concern is not the welfare of the animals. This is why many popular breeds (or previously popular breeds) have genetic diseases out the wazoo, as well as behavioral problems.
> Some customers do not have the option to adopt, particularly if they are looking for a certain type of dog, she said. “That is why we believe they should be given a choice.”
Which they still have by going directly to a breeder instead of relying on a middleman (which is exactly what people who actually care about breed purity and all that jazz actually do).
I think the new law is a bit draconian, but weak counterarguments like this one ain't gonna get it overturned.
I mostly support this law but it does mean we are going to have a lot of pit bulls. Sweet creatures, you may say. But they can be dangerous, at rates higher than most other breeds.
Can we stop with this? I fly rescues as a hobby and of the dozens of pits I've had, I've literally never encountered a hostile one to spite having to put the dogs in a somewhat unsettling environment. Yes, you can train them to be hostile like any dog, but targeting them specifically is insanity.
Actually most studies agree with my experience. You can cherry pick some that don't but ultimately if people have the perception that X dog makes a good fighting dog, they train them to become a fighting dog therefore skewing the stats. It doesn't matter what dog you start with, you can make a golden retriever a viscous killing machine if you're abusive or encourage violent behavior, which is also abuse.
Well, sure, but if your goal was to create a vicious killing machine, would you be indifferent to the breed of the dog? Pits aren't good fighting jobs simply because people perceive them to be.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And in this case your conclusions are drawn on even less... there actually is evidence that contradicts the absence of anecdotes on which you build your conclusions.
I know two people in California who paid over a thousand dollars to import a "rescue dog" from Taiwan. There are just not enough rescue dogs in California to meet demand.
"People may still buy dogs or cats directly from breeders."
So I guess pets stores will have to become breeders? Do they have to breed them at the store or can it be done elsewhere? Does the person doing the breeding have to be your employee or can it be a contractor? California is so full of these silly laws.
151 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 229 ms ] threadThe best way I've found to find truth seems to be the scientific method. Test your ideas and reject the ones that fail.
Ideologies are antithetical to that. But people are smug enough to think they just simply know better and dont need to test and modify their theories of the world.
People, I think, agree with this. I always hear it casually said this is why Europe has such better governance.
If a market is monopolized (or collusion occurs) it ceases to become free. Part of ensuring a free market (that's sometimes overlooked, particularly by some politicians if they're paid for by AT&T, Comcast, Google, etc) is making sure they don't happen.
Those people who wanted something very specific will likely have gone to some breeder anyway.
I can only assume that any shop that wants to make any money is going to put the best looking animal out front regardless of its source.
Whenever I'm nearby I go in just to see the cats, but also to see all the "I've been adopted!" signs, that seem to make me feel just a bit better about things.
I certainly wouldn't call the conditions anything less than "acceptable". It's not a palace but they're not caged. They're in a maybe 8x8 room full of cat toys, blankets, water, food, gyms, etc.
(Disclaimer: I have never bought a pet at a pet store)
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Om...
It's also something people should be aware of when selling or giving away a pet on craigslist.
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My wife volunteers for a bulldog rescue, and we have adopted 3 French bulldogs (in addition to many cats over the years). If my wife had her way we would live on a farm and adopt every animal in need.
Edit: I actually want to know the answer to the first question.
For these same reasons I also wouldn't have a pit bull in the house with a small child.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull-baiting [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulldog
Of course, it all depends on training. I'm with you on not believing an adult rescue in a house with a small child is a good idea. One you rescued as a puppy and made sure was well-trained, though? Sure, sounds like the perfect babysitter in canine form.
This is true of most (probably all) dogs, of course. Smaller dogs thankfully do less damage on average, but they also tend to be a lot more inherently aggressive ("Napoleon complex" and all that; they have to be as a survival strategy). Especially as rescues, they're the ones more likely to bite small children, since even small children are bigger than them and more likely to severely injure them.
It is also finally time we start moving away from pets being "products" and towards them being living things.
Regulation is also not a binary yes or no, on or off value. Something can be regulated not at all or regulated to an infinite degree.
Regulation has a lot of negative externalities it places upon society and we need to be cognizant of those trade-offs when we use it.
I'm generally very supportive of regulation that mandates transparency or that information be made available so that the consumer can better make their own choices (nutrition facts, those energy usage stickers on appliances, etc, are not perfect but solidly a net win IMO) because it tends to have very little by the way of negative trade-offs. I would really prefer to see CA try some sort of softer approach that nudges consumers toward the "right" pet purchasing decisions rather than going for the ban hammer right away.
Edit: why is this an unacceptable opinion?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Should the US have altogether banned the sale of meat for human consumption after Upton Sinclair published The Jungle? What a ridiculous notion.
Take your own advice as well. Government regulation is not always good. FDA is not a fantastic organization as which you allude to.
Planes being certified is not a controlling of source. You know that you can apply for a experimental license and can fly experimental airplanes without having to do your so called "certified".
Licenses and certifications don't mean anything. The state licenses drivers all the time, doesn't mean it is safer by doing that. Malpractice still occurs even when doctors are licensed. Accidents still happen with government regulation.
Please stop and think before _you_ write.
Is this true at a city level? There are many popular breeds and it’s hard to imagine that there would be sufficient inventory at all/most times.*
> Rescues also typically stop people from doing stupid things like bringing an English bulldog into a house with small children.
How so? Maybe if you adopt from a diligent rescue organization, but if the only organization in contact with the customer is a commercial pet store, the diligent vetting will likely go out the window.
Note: I’m all in favor of rescue animals, and several family members have adopted rescues from petsmart’s years-old program. I’m just not sure statewide legislation is the way to go here.
In that case, one has to settle for some different breed and not one of the more exotic ones. Oh, the humanity!
Commercial pet store != rescue organization. I used a rescue organization as an example of a way to find a specific breed if the local pet store or ASPCA didn't have one. Rescue organizations are also typically diligent as I noted.
It's not. Expect more shabbos goys: "Dog Fight: Dog rescuers, flush with donations, buy animals from the breeders they scorn" https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/investigations/...
The approval process is completely arbitrary and far too invasive. The president of the ASPCA was turned down by a rescue a few years ago, and he wrote about the process.
Also, a Washington Post article on the subject of adoption difficulty that mentions the ASPCA President’s rejections [1].
Thanks for sending me down an interesting path!
[0]: https://greatergood.org/blog/2016/01/05/why-i-was-turned-dow...
[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2018/02/02/m...
Rescues are by no means perfect, but we should be careful not to ignore the good they try to accomplish.
Sure, the interviewers would do well to relax a bit and not reject applicants for selfish reasons, but ultimately their job is to put a pet in a home with the best interests of that pet in mind. If even the ASPCA president can't sail through that process, then that's at least somewhat reassuring that pets ain't going to be placed in abusive/neglectful homes.
But from what I've read and the experiences myself and my friends and family have had, rescue interviewers are more often than not looking for perfect homes not simply trying to avoid abusive/neglectful homes.
Is it better to place a dog with someone who works 8 hours a day, or to euthanize it? (there are many people who'd say euthanize, but I disagree)
That's the case for a few highly sought-after breeds, but not the vast majority.
If it were the case that demand exceeds the supply for unwanted dogs, there would be no need for rescue organizations.
>but if you're unable to take work off (at least at first) to spend time with your dog (especially while your dog is getting used to its new home/family/"pack"), you might not be the right fit.
There definitely aren't enough jobless people to handle the supply of unwanted dogs. Kenneling a dog is much more stressful than moving a dog to a new home. Unless you have a particularly damaged dog (which could be the case of course), there's no need to take off work for more than a weekend (provided you aren't gone too long , and you have a fence or someone to walk the dog). It's a dog not a baby.
It ain't just about demand; it's about demand among those with reasonably-provable ability to actually care for a dog.
"Kenneling a dog is much more stressful than moving a dog to a new home."
That's not guaranteed, or even statistically likely. If that were as true as you seem to believe, then these animals wouldn't have ended up in a shelter at all; they would continue to exist in abusive/neglectful homes, because obviously that's better than being in a kennel, right?
The interview process is meant to ensure (with a reasonable amount of certainty) that the dog's not going to end up right back in the shelter (or - worse - not end up in the shelter due to a false sense of trust in an abusive or neglectful new owner). Making that "easier" for the applicant increases that risk.
Even with that risk aside, the dog's going from being in a kennel situation (with a lot of other dogs and different people present) to being comparatively alone. That's a pretty sudden and potentially-hard adjustment. Sure, some dogs are able to adjust in a weekend (with or without other dogs as companions); for most, that's probably cutting things pretty short.
"It's a dog not a baby."
It's a reasonably-intelligent animal that's prone to experience PTSD from neglect/abuse. Its well-being is more complex than just ticking off boxes, even for a dog that seems well-adjusted at first glance.
I think right now you're operating on the assumption of a best-case (or at least better-than-average-case) scenario. The people who evaluate adopters of pets have to also consider worst-case, since that's, you know, their job. Sometimes they can be a bit overzealous, yes, but it's not like they'll permanently bar you from ever adopting if there are fixable issues with you adopting an animal at that particular moment in time.
That's the problem. I don't have the same standard for what is "reasonably-provable ability to actually care for a dog" that dog rescue volunteers tend to, and I don't think they are better qualified to determine that. In fact I think that because of confirmation bias and their attachment to the dogs, they are the worst people to make that decision objectively.
>That's not guaranteed, or even statistically likely. If that were as true as you seem to believe, then these animals wouldn't have ended up in a shelter at all; they would continue to exist in abusive/neglectful homes, because obviously that's better than being in a kennel, right?
Your conclusion doesn't follow. It can both be the case that taking the average dog to a kennel for boarding is more stressful than moving it to a new home on average, and that some percentage of dogs will end up abandoned. Many rescue organizations even buy dogs directly from breeders.
>The interview process is meant to ensure (with a reasonable amount of certainty) that the dog's not going to end up right back in the shelter (or - worse - not end up in the shelter due to a false sense of trust in an abusive or neglectful new owner). Making that "easier" for the applicant increases that risk.
What is that risk? I guarantee you rescue organization volunteers aren't using risk models to adjust the difficulty of their interview processes. They can just randomly decide that need to work from home, have a fence with at least half an acre of grass, have lived in the same place for 5 years, and have a perfect credit score--despite not knowing whether those things are necessary or even well correlated with dog well being outcomes.
>Even with that risk aside, the dog's going from being in a kennel situation (with a lot of other dogs and different people present) to being comparatively alone.
Dogs in kennels spend a lot of time alone in cages. Moving to a new home in most cases, the dog will get more attention, not less.
>It's a reasonably-intelligent animal that's prone to experience PTSD from neglect/abuse. Its well-being is more complex than just ticking off boxes, even for a dog that seems well-adjusted at first glance.
It's an animal that has evolved to read human emotions. This ability makes us much more likely to anthropomorphize dogs. There are complications, but most of the time it's well being really is just--did I tick off the boxes, does the dog seem fine, and does it have any disruptive behavior problems. This is coming from someone who cared for many healthy and not so healthy dogs through the end of their lives--including an 18 year old dog who was mostly blind, deaf and incontinent for many years (and someone who was responsible for caring for numerous litters of puppies when my parents ran a small poodle breeding operation when i was a kid).
>Sometimes they can be a bit overzealous, yes, but it's not like they'll permanently bar you from ever adopting if there are fixable issues with you adopting an animal at that particular moment in time.
Many of the problems that will bar you from adopting are things that aren't easy to fix. Like, you need to work from home, you have kids, or your yard isn't big enough.
>also consider worst-case,
That's the problem, rescue workers are suffering from a serious case of confirmation bias. They only see the results of worst case scenarios, they don't know what the average case is.
That is indeed the problem. The complaint here seems to be that your standards are lower than theirs. That doesn't always mean their standards are too high; it could very well mean your standards are too low.
> I don't think they are better qualified to determine that
These people are (hopefully) trained specifically to determine that. It's possible you might happen to have even more training or experience in that regard, but most people don't.
> their attachment to the dogs
If attachment was the primary factor behind them rejecting your applications, they'd adopt outright (which does happen) instead of wasting your time. I suppose it's possible that they might have to have a certain number of rejections from the general public before volunteers/staff are eligible, and similarly possible that there are volunteers who don't qualify to adopt (though I'd question whether they're qualified to volunteer).
Most volunteers and paid personnel with whom I've interacted seem to be painfully aware that they can't take in every animal in need, and thus have to take comfort in animals going to good homes. Keyword there is good homes, though.
> Many rescue organizations even buy dogs directly from breeders.
That'd be surprising, since it makes no economic sense. It's possible (probable, even) that breeders might be discarding dogs they can't sell (this is how my mom got one of her two beagles; she couldn't get pregnant, so the breeder was trying to get rid of her), but buying healthy salable pups is unlikely (and in fact would now be illegal in California, per the article that catalyzed this whole discussion). Not to mention shelters tend to be overcrowded as is; outright buying more dogs is only going to make that worse.
I mean, I'm sure it's theoretically possible, but that seems like the sort of extraordinary assertion that would require extraordinary evidence.
> I guarantee you rescue organization volunteers aren't using risk models to adjust the difficulty of their interview processes.
I can't speak to all shelters, but at least from what I've seen there tends to be some kind of rubric for evaluating whether or not someone is suitable to adopt a particular dog, probably baked into the actual application (and/or the application gets fed directly into that rubric). There's probably room for bias, but it ain't like it's the wild wild west, either.
> Dogs in kennels spend a lot of time alone in cages. Moving to a new home in most cases, the dog will get more attention, not less.
They also get a fair amount of time not alone. At the very least you have volunteers walking the dogs daily (or more!). That's usually done with multiple dogs at once for efficiency's sake.
> they don't know what the average case is.
I'd imagine there are relatively few animal shelter personnel (paid or otherwise) who haven't themselves already raised animals in any capacity.
> They only see the results of worst case scenarios
And their primary job is to prevent those worst case scenarios from happening again. If the people who always see worst-case scenarios (and who are either trained or in close contact with those who are trained to identify worst-case scenarios) think that you raise enough red flags to look like a worst-case scenario, then is it possible that maybe - just maybe - they ain't wrong to be hesitant in letting you take home a dog?
That's not to say you're a bad person or anything, or that you're incapable of properly raising an animal (it doesn't sound like either of those things are true); rather, there seems to be something beyond "being a normal human being" that is raising a red flag. I don't know enough about your specific...
Trained by whom, and to what standards. In most cases there’s woefully inadequate oversight and little credentialing required to conduct adoption interviews.
>If attachment was the primary factor behind them rejecting your applications, they'd adopt outright (which does happen) instead of wasting your time.
That happens frequently. It’s one of the reasons many rescue organizations have a bad reputation. Stories of foster “parents” adopting dogs after applicants have already wasted time on the application process are common.
But that’s not what I mean by attachment. I meant that their standards are too high because they are emotionally attached and aren’t looking at the situation objectively.
>but buying healthy salable pups is unlikely (and in fact would now be illegal in California, per the article that catalyzed this whole discussion).
No, California law did nothing to outlaw breeders or make it illegal to buy from breeders. It only affects retail locations. Buying from a breeders is perfectly fine.
>I mean, I'm sure it's theoretically possible, but that seems like the sort of extraordinary assertion that would require extraordinary evidence.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/investigations/...
>I can't speak to all shelters, but at least from what I've seen there tends to be some kind of rubric for evaluating whether or not someone is suitable to adopt a particular dog, probably baked into the actual application (and/or the application gets fed directly into that rubric). There's probably room for bias, but it ain't like it's the wild wild west, either.
Rescues are completely non-transparent and based on the rescues I’m familiar with are basically ran like the wild west.
Your experience may be different, and of course it would be. There is little regulation or oversight. The quality is so varied from rescue to rescue--that’s a huge part of the problem.
>They also get a fair amount of time not alone. At the very least you have volunteers walking the dogs daily (or more!).
The average person is going to spend more than the amount of time a dog gets during a daily walk. And just like homes, the contact time a dog may get in a kennel is is variable. If you are going to compare the average case, a dog in a private home is going to get more contact time than one in the average kennel.
> they don't know what the average case is. I'd imagine there are relatively few animal shelter personnel (paid or otherwise) who haven't themselves already raised animals in any capacity.
They don’t see that as the average case, they see that as the best case, which is balanced out by all of the worst case scenarios they see.
>their primary job is to prevent those worst case scenarios from happening again.
That’s not their primary job. If that were their primary job, they would euthanize every dog they got and not risk letting anyone adopt any of them.
>If the people who always see worst-case scenarios (and who are either trained or in close contact with those who are trained to identify worst-case scenarios) think that you raise enough red flags to look like a worst-case scenario, then is it possible that maybe - just maybe - they ain't wrong to be hesitant in letting you take home a dog?
Or seeing only worst case scenarios makes them paranoid.
>That's not to say you're a bad person or anything, or that you're incapable of properly raising an animal (it doesn't sound like either of those things ...
One of the reasons that so many dogs end up in shelters and rescues is that people think this way. What people need to realize is that in many ways a dog is just like a baby that never becomes self sufficient.
> If it were the case that demand exceeds the supply for unwanted dogs, there would be no need for rescue organizations.
Rescue organizations typically have more applications than dogs (very different than a general shelter). In these cases the organization is really a matching service. Older dogs are hard to place no matter what, particularly ones that already have health problems from years of neglect, abuse, and breeding.
No analogy is perfect and you shouldn't attempt to apply them beyond the scope of the intended similarities. A dog isn't like a baby in that babies require many hours of attention per day. Dogs do not, and the vast majority of dogs are fine being alone for a few hours.
>Rescue organizations typically have more applications than dogs (very different than a general shelter).
In my area the shelter has been taken over completely by a rescue organization. They conduct the rescue type perfect fit required interviews for all adoptions. They definitely do not have more applications than dogs.
How do you know this?
>Rescue organizations typically have more applications than dogs (very different than a general shelter).
Implying that general shelters do have more dogs than applicants. Since I'm talking about a general shelter...
me too! i grew up out in the country for a period of my youth and the thing i really miss is the animals.
and good on her for volunterring! i adopted a dog last year and just started volunteering in the kitten nursery of a local rescue organization (they’re so cute!). volunteering (and then fostering) is a good way to see the range of animals and their behaviors before you make a commitment and also streamlines the adoption process.
Why don't they force the breeders to have better conditions for the animals, and include livestock and lab animals along with it?
By doing it this way they aren't acknowledging there is a demand for certain breeds of dogs unlikely to be found at a shelter. The market is going to find a way around this, either by dealing with the dealers' directly (or through some sort of "finder") or going out of state.
Either way, the poor conditions for animals are going to continue in some shape or form, and no one is going to be able to set up a breeder farm that treats its animals ethically without finding a way to sell their animals, which means jumping through yet another hoop.
It's just dumb, kind of insulting to the voters, and I suspect the politicians for this were intending to avoid taking the heavy donors of the farming/pharmaceutical industries to task while still trying to cast themselves in a progressive light.
Breeding dogs isn't hard / has a low barrier to entry. You need a male and a female and a place to house the puppies. Conditions could be generally terrible. Enforcing licensing is unrealistic - who's going to do the inspections? Who's going to pay the inspectors?
Further, there are too many dogs and cats, period. Disincentivizing commercial breeding (making it harder to sell) is a _good_ thing, and rerouting some of the animals who would be killed by shelters who can no longer accomodate them is also a good thing.
Regulation is difficult because of unintended consequences. So given a choice between "ban pet stores from selling bred animals" and "create a new bureaucracy to oversee animal conditions" (then pairing it with something like a transfer tax), the former is a lighter market touch.
And if we want to get realpolitik, mongrels tend to have stronger genetics than pure-breds ("Life finds a way"), so this is probably long-term good for pets in general.
'Cross-breed' is term I've heard involving pure-bred ancestors.
E.g. this adorable Bassador on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_crossbreed#/media/File%3...
1. There's too many humans, killing humans to reduce the population isn't really a palatable solution to anyone. 2. There's too many cats/dogs, killing them seems much more reasonable to some, and awful to others. They're in the sweet spot between family and wildlife. 3. Pests (deer, rabbits, etc) are over-populating, killing them is pretty much A-OK.
Personally I see a cultural issue akin to wastage. Especially in the US, we love to buy and throw stuff out all the time. I would hypothesize that people who buy/rescue mutts and less desirable breeds are more likely to abandon them after some time. Others who spend thousands of dollars on a specific breed they like will be more likely to keep it the duration of its life.
I see the solution as more of a tax. Stop letting people get cats/dogs for $20. I also don't think inspections are unreasonable. The government already inspects half of the industries, what's one more?
At least in my area, any expensive breeds (any pure breed that's not a Chihuahua or Pit Bull really) are scooped up by rescues almost immediately. Then if you want to adopt one, you have to go through an interview processes ran by people who are temporarily caring for the dog who are looking for reasons to disqualify you.
The approval process is completely arbitrary and far too invasive. The president of the ASPCA was turned down by a rescue a few years ago, and he wrote about the process.
Regarding adoption, rescues are more invested in what homes their animals go to because they often are making a promise to take back any animals they take resposibility for. They don’t want animals to go back to the shelter, so any sign of potential issue will get an adoption canceled. Are there false positives? Of course. But a lot of animals going to good homes that would otherwise be killed.
Just looked at my local shelter website. 78 dogs for adoption at the shelter. Not a single pure breed that wasn't a pit bull. And 90% of the dogs were pit bull or pit bull mixes.
>so any sign of potential issue will get an adoption canceled. Are there false positives? Of course.
That's the problem rescue workers are in a poor position to make this determination. They are in a perfect position to suffer from confirmation bias, plus they are too emotionally attached to the dogs.
They need more objective standards. When the Head of the ASPCA can't meet your standards, something is wrong.
>But a lot of animals going to good homes that would otherwise be killed.
And there are rescue organizations that buy dogs from breeders. Sure rescue organizations do a lot of good, but they could be ran a lot better I think they need more oversight.
Not getting on the specific argument, but any such kind of tax, it should be analogous to the buyers income/wealth, and not to the price.
Such that a poor person and a rich person have a proportionally equal penalty for buying the item -- else it's just a restriction on poor people.
A static price is not a prevention, but a disincentivization. Enabling people to do something they are otherwise economically incapable of doing is how we got the 2008 recession. Granted this is a whole different level, but the point is the same. A functioning economy reflects the value, not the means. And as a result, some are less able than others. A price point that makes it difficult for someone to afford a pet will (presumably) make them think twice before taking on a responsibility they might not be able to handle.
If what somebody learnt from life is that "they have to pay for poor people's kids", then indeed some are better for all of us to not have been born in the first place. But those are not necessarily the poor people's kids.
Can you describe the conditions of cats and dogs with today's breeders in a few sentences, instead of just saying "poor"? At least by quoting someone else.
Well, there's a demand for all kinds of things, doesn't mean it should be satisfied (or that "the market will find a way around it" means we should make it open).
A $2,000 "rescue" animal for sale at a pet shop clearly isn't a rescue. (Especially if it comes with a purebred certificate!)
This is a very good move, as the only impact it will have is shutting down the puppy mills.
If a person cares about a particular breed they typically buy directly from the breeder anyway. That way they can check on the pedigree of the dog. At the same time they can see the condition of the dogs. The people who buy from pet stores really want a dog similar to a particular breed but don't particularly care about the breeding much less the conditions of the puppies at the puppy mill.
My wife & I work with a rescue and the breakdown tends to looks like:
RESCUE ANIMAL conditions: abysmal when rescued; then the most loving fosters and homes around breed: "brown dog" cost: ~ $200-$400 depending on fees owner: really wants a dog (our screening is quite strict)
PET STORE ANIMAL conditions: unknown, but lots of rescues come from backyard breeders that willingly or not have terrible conditions breed: looks like whatever is hot this year (yorkie cross, french bulldog, chocolate lab) cost: $hundreds to thousands owner: wants a type of dog but cost, effort or timing prevents planning with a breeder
BREEDER conditions: usually pretty good if they're a registered breeder or breed, though the females have more litters than breed: very specialized, registered cost: $thousands owner: wants a very specific dog for various reasons, willing to plan 6+ months in advance, disposable income
Interestingly the type of people who adopt rescues are very similar to many of those who buy the expensive breeder animals.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/guidance-on-keepin...
It feels a bit panopticon to require all breeding animals to be registered, but technologically it's now quite easy. Allowing neutered animals out of the control system would be a compromise so this doesn't affect the average pet owner.
Many breeds operate breed registries anyway. It's just the "puppy mills" we're trying to do away with.
That could also be described as a bit panopticon, but is the counterargument not the same: children and animals should be raised with care, under threat of law, because we can assume in the current world they will suffer otherwise?
People get very easily upset by this kind of child welfare thing, regarding it as distrustful, but it's very necessary.
is “panopticon” now fashionable? in any case, i quibble with your usage here. the panopticon is not merely a tracking apparatus, but an apparatus of self-discipline. it’s function was to control, and it illustrates a systemic application of micro-power (discipline you apply to yourself) on large populations.
that’s why it was insidious and that’s why it was interesting. you’re losing this interesting and essential feautre the way you throw around this word.
but that doesn't fit the situation here anyway. the animals are not being tracked continuously and in every way, but rather, just their existence and general health at a few checkpoints. you are being forced to be good stewards and record keepers of your own bovine, so there are some inspections and certifications of the facilities for example.
these animals are usually meant for (wider) human consumption, so you might disagree, but i don't see that as overly onerous.
Fortunately a pet is not a basic necessity.
Yup, being poor sucks. Have to drive a shitty car instead of a BMW, have to have a mutt instead of a Standard Poodle. The social injustice of it all...
https://www.humanesociety.org/news/horrible-hundred-2017-unc...
Or put it differently: force pet stores in California to sell only pets that were treated humanly.
I think the weak federal rules that are referenced in the story here are preemptive, so, it's quite possible that California can't adopt stricter rules.
In any case, it's a lot easier to enforce a “sell from shelters only” rule than one that requires state enforcement of standards on out-of-state suppliers.
The article states that the law allows for purchasing animals directly from a breeder.
They are attempting to reduce the abuses by increasing transaction costs by removing the main retail channel; this is not intended to prevent sales of specific breeds by breeders.
> The market is going to find a way around this, either by dealing with the dealers' directly (or through some sort of "finder") or going out of state.
Yeah, people who have an intense desire for a specific breed (or a non-rescue for some non-breed reason) will still have a number of other avenues less convenient than the pet store. That probably won't cut mills out entirely (but it will narrow the convenience advantage they offer over conventional, reputable breeders), but then a solution doesn't have to be total to be an improvement.
This reminds me of people who are clamoring for a minimum wage hike with a closet full of sweatshop clothing.
It is likely that pet stores will see this (possible behavior issues) as a liability, with the result being less stores will carry pets at all.
Sometimes that history is an aggressive one and the animal is going to need a LOT of attention to train out undesirable habits. I have such a dog and we went through such a period.
Is the 17 year old at Petsmart trained for those types of rescue animals? I sure hope so.
https://www.humanesociety.org/news/horrible-hundred-2017-unc...
I don't see this solving the problem it was intended to solve.
Which they still have by going directly to a breeder instead of relying on a middleman (which is exactly what people who actually care about breed purity and all that jazz actually do).
I think the new law is a bit draconian, but weak counterarguments like this one ain't gonna get it overturned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect
Which is the case with some pit bull owners unfortunately.
https://www.thedodo.com/close-to-home/puppy-mill-dogs-sold-a...
"People may still buy dogs or cats directly from breeders."
So I guess pets stores will have to become breeders? Do they have to breed them at the store or can it be done elsewhere? Does the person doing the breeding have to be your employee or can it be a contractor? California is so full of these silly laws.
It's a public health issue and should be treated in part as such.