02|10|09| by Brinkley -  What’s in a word? A lot of power. When did being a breeder become a "bad" thing? When I first got into Shelties, my mentors proudly had a sign out front proclaiming (blank) Kennels. They sold (yes I said SOLD - not placed or adopted) quality show dogs and healthy pets. They were proud of their hobby. I was so looking forward to the day when I could have a couple of acres out in the country and do the same. Now I feel cheated. I have a sign out front - in very small letters it says my kennel name but ONLY the name not the word "kennel". There’s another sign nearby. It says "Posted - No trespassing." Guess that’s a sign of the times.
 

Friends tell me they don’t have a kennel. Their dogs are kept in "dog rooms" not kennels. Others say "ALL my dogs are house dogs". When did keeping dogs in a kennel become a bad thing? When did keeping multiple dogs become bad? Several of our founders made a substantial part of their income from the sale of pet puppies. Now people hide their numbers and won’t even tell other breeders exactly how many dogs they have. Others say "I only breed for myself". When did it become a hateful thing to breed a pet or two? Or even (horrors) make a profit from puppy sales?

I am always proud when I sell a puppy to someone who will show it but I am not ashamed that I may have produced a "pet quality" puppy. I am proud that someone who shows would want a puppy I produced and equally proud when I place a healthy pet with someone who will cherish and spoil it for a lifetime.
 

In the last twenty years, there has been a gradual mind change in our country. Part of it is that we have become more urban/suburban. Few people ever see a farm or work with animals. Pets have become a substitute for children and upwardly mobile people spoil them as "furkids" and "furbabies". I cringe every time I hear those words - especially from a breeder.

The pet industry is a multimillion dollar money machine of cute clothes, soft crates and designer treats for pampered pooches. Celebrities use pets as accessories and the fact that they are animals is forgotten. No wonder people raise such a fuss when a dog "bites" someone. An animal did what animals do when humans make mistakes in training, handling, even approaching it incorrectly. When I was a child it was drilled into us - NEVER approach a strange animal. How many kids get any instruction today? If you want to know the true facts on the "dog bite" epidemic in our country read "Dogs Bite But Balloons and Slippers Are More Dangerous" by Janis Bradley. You are more likely to get hit by lightening or slip and fall in a bathtub than you are to be killed by a dog attack even though people have forgotten dogs are animals. They think of their dog as a "fur child" and feel a sense of betrayal and rejection when they or someone else gets bitten by their dog.

The other part of this equation is far more insidious. The animal rights cult is fast becoming part of mainstream thinking. With them comes the use of words such as "puppymill". Every time I hear some breeder pointing at another breeder and calling them a puppymill I want to smack heads and take numbers. I don’t feel a need to go into depth on this issue since Charlotte McGowan has done a fabulous job covering the subject in her article. I will simply say that in thirty four years in this breed, I have never gone to visit a so-called "puppymill" breeder in Shelties that actually turned out to BE a "puppymill". Sometimes they had more dogs than some people approved of and sometimes they didn’t keep their dogs the way others thought they should, but never have they turned out to what the AR groups love to show on TV with the filthy wire cages and sad-eyed dogs wallowing in their own filth. In fact two breeders that a jealous someone called a "puppymill" ended up being among my best friends. I have visited horrible breeding situations with rescue but never was it someone who was actually a Sheltie show breeder. Maybe I have just been lucky - or maybe it’s not as common a situation as the AR groups would have us believe.

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) announced to the media that there are 900 puppymills in the state of Virginia, many of them "unlicensed commercial kennels" selling puppies through the Internet. Most likely some of those "unlicensed” and “selling through Internet" breeders are US - show breeders who keep our numbers down so we don’t have to be licensed. The animal rights fanatics consider anyone who breeds even one litter to be a puppymill. Their motto is "don’t breed while others die" meaning the dogs put down in shelters. Read Nathan Winograd’s excellent new book "Redemption, The Myth of Pet Overpopulation" for a commonsense approach to this "problem" that the shelters and AR groups are using as a weapon to attack breeders.

Other word changes brought into common usage by the AR groups are "rescue", "adoption", "placement" and home visits. It has become harder to take in a stray than to adopt a human child! I wonder how many people are turned off by some of the attitudes found in the more radical "rescue" groups and gone away when they would have been an excellent home for a dog. I was refused an "adoption" on a cat a few years ago. The reason - I had intact dogs! Did they think the dogs are going to breed the cat? Or I am a bad person because I have intact dogs that I show?

This goes hand in hand with the move to change the language of the law from animal "owners" to animal "guardians". I am sure a lawyer could address this far better than I but I know that the word "guardian" has well established limits and definitions under current law. Do you really want some AR-slanted animal control officer able to come into your home without a warrant and tell you that you can’t remove dewclaws? Or write you a ticket because your dogs don’t have water bowls in their crates 24/7? That could be our future if we become the "guardians" of our dogs instead of owners.

There comes a point where we have to refuse the politically correct language that has infiltrated society from the far out AR groups. They don’t even like animals all that much and they seem to hate people. To Ingrid Newkirk of PeTA "A rat is a pig is a boy." To me "a dog is a dog is an animal". I am proud to say that I am a breeder of purebred Shetland Sheepdogs. Shakespeare said "that which we call a rose, by any other word would smell as sweet." And dog poop is still just as stinky.

I own dogs that live in a kennel and I am a breeder. And that’s my final word.

by Elizabeth Brinkley, Legislative Liaison
Three Rivers SSC of Greater Pittsburgh
elizabeth@dantekennels.com 
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