I feel sick

I was just at a blog that has made me feel completely sick. I can't believe what I was reading, actually. This is supposed to be the blog of a person who is a leader in the fight against breed specific legislation on a national level - she's on the executive of the Dog Legislation Council of Canada - she's supposed to be the leading voice of sanity when it comes to dog legislation and sane thinking on dog politics - and when I read the post I'm going to give the link to, I can't believe what I was reading. The post is entitled "Trend Spotting", and it's all about another persons blog who she likes having a post about shelter/rehomed dogs being dangerous because half of all fatal dog attacks have supposedly involved those kinds of dogs.

She disagreed with their conclusion but said that "Most abandoned dogs are large male pups that have been allowed to run wild and get their own way, becoming a nuisance in the process. So, it's off to the pound they go. When people repeat the 'get a dog from a shelter' mantra, I conclude that they are probably not the most dog-savvy people around and are likely falling for widespread advertising by the groups that actually support mass shelter killing - animal rights/liberation outfits like the HSUS, Peta, and others."

She doesn't completely put off adopting shelter dogs, but she says "Nothing is impossible. It just depends how relaxed and confident you are with dogs and how much work you want to put into correcting behaviour that was allowed to get out of hand by the previous owner(s)."

But it's in the comments section where things go absolutely nuts - the person from the other blog comes in and leaves some comments -

The person who wrote the original post that Selma has written her post commenting on says - "The entire movement against dogs is to outlaw the breeding of dogs and instead use shelter dogs or third world transplants. In other words, to make every dog a re-homed dog. Buying would be a sin, hence the elimination of selling a dog. Unfortunately if we all accept that premise, we are inviting the legal premise of the animal is NOT property since we can't buy it, we can't advertise it, we can't set the price, etc. Trying to say we can't allow a pet store "to sell" a commercially milled dog is wrong. If they want to change commercial kennels then they should work on the law that regulates it, and get the inspectors to close those down which are in true violation. Not outlaw the selling."

The person then goes on to say - "Negligence and bad owners have ALWAYS been around. Intact dogs have ALWAYS been around. Different breeds of dogs have ALWAYS been around. Even Guard dogs have ALWAYS been around. Dogs being tethered have always been around...... Nothing has changed except that ARs are up to their tricky little ways! But disproportionate numbers of re-homed dogs has NOT always been around.
The re-homing of dogs is something that has happened in the past 25 years, gradually. Like everything else the ARs have done over TIME. They aren't fooling me. I believe absolutely nothing they say. It's all just time tested methods of indoctrination."

That leads Selma on to comment - "I agree with a lot of what you say, PD.

It constantly astounds me that people who blithely repeat AR propaganda (who do you think is behind breed bans, by the way? Govt wankers didn't come up with this on their own) and foolishly send them money never seem to question their motives or even do some VERY BASIC DIGGING to find out what these groups actually stand for and promote.

Here are their major goals:

1. End all domestic animal breeding.
2. Make it illegal to breed animals for pets, farms, etc.
3. Make it illegal to sell animals - unless you are an AR group, then the sky is the limit. As dogs become more and more scarce, expect prices in shelters to skyrocket.

They make no secret of it at all. Check out HSUS, Peta, even the ASPCA is trending to AR now with their babble about 'guardianship' and 'doing what's in the animal's best interest' - as decided by them, of course, not the owner or the animal himself. Trust me, if you asked my dogs what they'd prefer, they don't want to live like pariahs or be kept in cages by the Doggy Gestapo - they like it right here with me, thank you very much.

PD's theory only sounds bizarre because it's unconventional. It has as much merit as breed banning or any of the other senseless AR policies directed at eliminating our close relationship with dogs - and cats, horses, cows and the other few species we have domesticated over the millennia."

These are the people who have national respect and the ear of politician and say that they're getting things done "behind the scenes".

I think I want to throw up. These people consider people like me to be AR. To them people like me are the enemy. Take that as your gauge. I am very glad I don't live on her planet.

Update - slightly later in the evening for me - I actually went to the blog that Selma is basing this post on - what a loon this person is, I can't believe she actually puts stock in their writings. There is a post called "Saving those shelter dogs - real or ruse?" that is a hoot and a must read. It's all about the "continued media exposure year after year, animal extremists have used the “shelter dogs” plight as one of their foremost weapons to shut down the breeding of well-tempered dogs."

They go on to say - "Those opposing MSN, and unfair restraints on commerce and trade, or, even defending the rights of a pet store to offer whatever pets they choose as against the extremist machine demonizing their every move—are the same advocates that can use the extremists’ methods against them."

It's so funny that I'd find these completely outlandish posts on the same day that Nathan Winograd sends out an email that is the text to a beautiful blog post about how because Californians voted in proposition 2 by such a big margin and also voted to ban greyhound racing in Massachusetts - that it shows very obviously that the world is ready to be a more humane and loving place for it's non-human inhabitants - and that is a beautiful thing. You can read the post at "we are the ones we've been waiting for"

Mr Winograd is always the voice of reason in a world of bad intentions.