Editorial suggests the US needs to expand sources for puppies

No Gravatar

I received the link today on the Pack News Wire to an editorial that ran Monday on the DVM360 website. I was so stunned that I had to read over it several times.

The writer, Mark Cushing, JD of the Animal Policy Group is suggesting an expanding US market for dogs needs to look overseas for breeding sources for puppies, as our human population grows.

Cushing lists what he feels are US sources for dogs, which includes hobby breeders (he states the volume there isn’t enough), large-scale breeders (but he notes puppy mills are an issue) and “Untreated feral dogs in the American South and Midwest producing litters for delivery by local shelters to urban markets around the country.”

On the latter “source” he goes on to write that is “difficult to view this as an intentional, humane source of the volume needed, although it is a steady source now.”

It is a strange take that I’ve never seen worded so oddly. In reality, it is not so much feral dogs who are adding to the homeless ranks.

How he lists “untreated feral dogs” as a source to fill what he states as a growing US demand for pets, without mentioning homeless adult dogs and puppies that are ready for adoption is stunning. How he writes an editorial about the demand for pets without noting millions of homeless pets are dying in shelters every year – before they find homes is stunning.

And it is stunning that Cushing fails to mention that by far the best “sources” for pets in the United States are your area shelters and rescue organization.

I’ll give Cushing the benefit of the doubt, to a degree, in that he might have been focusing on puppies. But again, new homeless dogs are being born every day all over the nation. Rescue is the BEST source for pets.

We absolutely do not need anyone suggesting families should look to overseas breeders for puppies, while millions of dogs are dying in the US without homes.

PACK MENTALITY BLOG: Compassion - teamed with Science and Logic