…Right! And the sad rest of the story is that I am certain the proponents of MSN will (if they aren’t already) hold up the “effectiveness” of their programs by quoting meaningless numbers rather than actual impact.

I can just see it now…if a hundred breeders are targeted and fined, they’ll use that old wooly math of “2 litters of 4 pups and each pup has 2 more litters in 7 years = a kagillion dogs”…to boast their program “saved” tens of thousands of pets from being born.

But will the numbers tell the real story; that these prevented births were of dogs who would have been planned/wanted and of a population LEAST likely to ever end up homeless or sheltered?

…or of the existing and proposed MSN legislation in which the breeders can pay fines rather than be forced to sterilize: generally those fines are collected and used to S/N other pets. The MSN advocates can then boast that x-number of pets were saved from existence… but will they admit the program was funded entirely by breeders targeted by them for nothing more than visibility?

And if a breeder complies with MSN fines, that person is one of the few responsible and ethical enough to care what happens to their kennel license or whatever other compliance threats exist. Less scrupulous breeders will just lie.

I hate to rant but also…what’s crazy about this is that almost all programs or proposed programs I’ve seen like this allocate the collected fines to pay for S/N subsidiary programs for shelters/rescues.

Sounds nice and generous but….in any responsible and ethical shelter or rescue, NO pet is at risk of going on to reproduce. (shouldn’t the money instead go to needy families with pets or feral colony caretakers?)

In responsible No-Kills, all pets are adopted and no pet leaves intact and in shelters/rescues where some pets aren’t afforded adoption, unadopted pets leave dead. Either way, adopted or dead, they don’t go on to reproduce.

So, in a community with MSN collecting penalties from breeders and allocating them to subsidize shelters/rescues, all that is happening is that some breeders are paying for some shelters/rescues to S/N pets that would have otherwise NEVER gone on to reproduce.

I can see how that would save these groups money…but how does it curb pet overpopulation?

All of these lawbreakers were within sight when the ranger tagged the slow-moving pair.

It was MUCH easier to confront an 80-year-old woman and her old dog who shuffles along not three feet behind her. Why hassle a bunch of drunken yahoos (not from the neighborhood) who might give you grief when you can meet your ticket quota with an uncomplaining old woman from the neighborhood who walks for her and her dog’s health every day?

One morning while receiving such a warning, she spied a dog off running freely in the distance and asked “Why don’t you go after that one?”.

The officer simply answered “Because I can’t find an owner for that dog, but I can for yours.”

Maddening.

If the goal is to reduce the number of unwanted pets, doesn’t it make sense to concentrate first on the population of pets/people making the biggest contribution to the population?

I mean, isn’t it obvious that the vast majority of pets in America are pets born of unplanned litters? Sure, breeders contribute to the overall number of pets on the planet but purebred pets don’t exist in numbers anywhere near that of pets born as strays, into feral colonies or of otherwise unplanned, mixed breed litters.

I’m not suggesting purpose-bred pets are immune to homelessness, I’m just wondering why all the noise about mandatory s/n is so focused on breeders.

What do these laws and proposed laws do to reduce the number of litters in the feral and stray population? What about the immeasurable number of pets born because their families truly could not afford the surgery? And what about that guy who keeps bringing litter after litter to the shelter each year because ..“well, they take ‘em off my hands for me”….is he being targeted as aggressively as the breeders out there producing planned and wanted litters?

I don’t know, maybe it’s just an “easier to find, easier to fine” situation. Hobby/show breeders generally have kennel names and paper trails and addresses….

I guess I just believe that, in a perfect world, all pets would be born of a planned litter and into an ethical and responsible breeder’s home. Of course, I love a “mutt” just as much as any other creature but I support responsible, ethical breeding because I don’t like the alternatives; pets born of unplanned, unwanted litters or no pets born at all.

P.S: I realize not all breeders are ethical or responsible. My point is that NO pet should be born of an unplanned/unwanted litter and MOST are.

(quote)
And that’s why I don’t care how clean the mill was, and I don’t care if a thousand studies say that puppies are just as healthy and loved if they come from a pet store as if they come from a home breeder. Because it’s not about the puppies, it’s about their mothers.
(end quote; see above post for rest)

>

It’s about the puppies too. (I know you know this, but I’m going to say it anyway). Like their parents, puppies born in mills don’t have their socialization and developmental needs met. Reputable breeders provide things such as early neural stimulation, socialization, and opportunities for puppies to develop proprioception skills before they leave for their new homes.

P