Want more than three dogs in some areas? You need a **100 ACRES** of land - 100 acres, for seven 24 lb Frenchies. Add on top of that restrictions about distance from road and property line that your average cattle ranch might be able to conform to, but not anyone else, and it all combines to make it impossible for a hobby breeder to breed dogs legally.

So, we’re out here in Mennonite country, because the Mennonites have lobbied - HARD - for almost NO restrictions on their right to keep 300 dogs in their barn. Like most municipalities, no distinction is made between a hobby breeder with one to two litters per year, and a volume breeder with one to two litters per week.

Until we can convince them that there IS a difference, breeders like me will either have to hide, or live in areas where we’re only protected because of laws that allow people to warehouse hundreds of dogs in dismal conditions. It’s not a happy compromise, trust me.

The commercial orchid growers are licensed federally, under the USDA. Therefore, they are exempt from state commerce laws relating to agricultural pursuits. What’s more, red tape and exorbitant fees don’t faze them at all - it’s just the cost of doing business. Since mass production leads to greater efficiency, more advanced systems and larger profit margins, they carry on as usual while writing off business-related expenses.

It’s the little guys who do it for love, not money (the definition of an amateur) who get the shaft. They are easy targets, as Christie points out because if they are associated, it’s a very loose thing. They don’t make money and usually it costs them so they are not a business in the taxation sense. They don’t have fancy equipment, most of it is cobbled together through trial and error and lots of scrounging. They know that what they are doing is harmless so they can’t envision society turning against them, being legislated into second-class status and ending up criminalized for doing what they love - bringing happiness to others and teaching them to appreciate the newest and most highly evolved plants on Earth.

Incidentally, orchids don’t tolerate much fertilizer or water (with a couple of exceptions), they prefer what we call controlled neglect, so the runoff issue is kind of a non-starter. Power consumption, maybe, because big greenhouses ain’t cheap to operate. Growing plants that can’t be eaten could be another hook for the enviro-nazis.

I fully agree with Christie, legislation should be a last resort. Public education and peer pressure carry a lot more clout than some half-baked, poorly written piece of law that, per usual, will only affect law-abiding citizens - the ones who aren’t a problem in the first place.

People need to learn that buying a dog from a pet shop isn’t a good idea and doesn’t mean what it used to mean. Those dogs are bred for only one purpose - to make a profit for the big outfits - you know, the ones who are usually exempt from animal liberation-inspired legislation.

Environmentally conscious small orchid growers — because of their hard-earned expertise — find themselves in a position where it is not only reasonable, but seems an ethical obligation, to expose the practices of the giant orchidariums to consumers, to law enforcement, and to lawmakers.

Small orchid growers don’t want groundwater pollution and invasive orchids and lingering pesticides any more than do regular “civilians.” So some of them become particularly vocal critics of orchid mass-production, using their special expertise to explain the problems to ordinary houseplant owners and non-owners.

But the big orchidariums have lots of financial clout, and heavily influence the orchid-growers’ national club. They also have clubs of their own, and hire lobbyists and PR men. And what they hammer at, over and over, is We are all exactly the same. If the government regulates Megalorchids, Inc., in any way, it is coming into your kitchen. All orchideers must hang together. It’s traitorous to criticize Big Orch. All orchid growers have the same interests, and we big guys are going to tell you what those are.

And huge numbers of kitchen orchid growers swallow this kool-aid, and become cannon-fodder for Big Orch, while viciously attacking their environmentally-minded fellow hobbyists.

“Where are regular consumers going to get orchids if they aren’t available in the Walmart garden center?” they demand to know.

Meanwhile, the forces of orchid liberation, and frank orchid haters, press forward with laws to hobble the kitchen growers in every town. “All orchid-growers are the same. They are all just in it for money, and don’t care at all about the impact of their product. Look at their own advocacy groups — they are the ones saying it!”

lol but not in a funny way.

for example this excellent blogger: http://caveat.blogware.com/blo.....andShoveIt

;-)

It’s too bad the big kennel clubs weren’t quick off the mark to thwart the fanatics. It’s also too bad that legislators are too busy or lazy to do some shallow digging to find out what’s what.

As for where dogs will come from when our ‘friends’ in the pseudo-animal welfare camp succeed, why, from them of course. They’ll own all the shelters and continue to ‘raid’ breeders who are on the books to steal their dogs and puppies, then sell them as rescues or adoptions. It’s called cornering the market.

You know, even breeder friends of mine, some very long-time fanciers, are pretty blasé when I warn them about all these laws. They think it’s fear-mongering, sensationalism, tinfoil hatting - until it hits them. Breed bans are so last century now, only the hicks in the hinterland are still buying it. There’s too much pushback, too many facts have come out. Mandatory neutering isn’t going very well either, thank Dog.

Easy to target those evil, smelly, greedy breeders though, isn’t it? I presume you’ve seen Yates’s latest - 179 Bills in 34 states all involving warrantless searches and other intrusive policies.

Breeding/selling dogs is becoming a crime. It won’t be long before owning them is, too.