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roggenfeldGSPs
MH
Posts:93
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| 04/04/2008 10:54 AM |
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This came off the Golden list to CVKC's membership. I
thought it was an interesting and well written reminder of who we
really are, and how we should stand up and be counted.
Pentimento
by DIANE KLUMB
as published in Show Site Magazine September 2002
Hi. My name is Diane, and I am a Breeder.
I am good at it, and I am damned proud of it.
I bought my first show dog in 1969 and whelped my first litter
in April, 1975.
I have, since that inauspicious beginning, in partnership with my long
suffering husband and a few good friends produced a few dozen champions,
some top producers, a handful of Specials, and a lot of superb
close-working
grouse dogs and well loved companions. We kept a fair number over the
years
and sold the rest. (NOTE: I said sold, not 'placed'...we'll
address that
particular idiocy later.) We owned a kennel for many years, and trained
gun
dogs. This involved the killing of untold numbers of game birds, all of
which we ate. I have more recipes for pheasant, grouse and woodcock than
you can shake a stick at. We showed our hunting dogs and hunted over our
show dogs.
I do not believe for a minute that the whelping or sale of a
single one of those purebred dogs is in any way responsible of the
euthanization of a million unwanted dogs a year at the shelters around
the
country, any more that I believed that cleaning my plate when I was a
kid
could in any way benefit all the poor starving children in Africa,
no matter
how much the nuns or my mother tried to make me feel guilty about it.
I couldn't see the logic then and I can't see it now (although
today I would maybe refrain from suggesting that we bundle up Sister
Edlita's meatloaf and actually send it to the poor starving children in
Africa.)
Look at it this way:
If I go to a bookstore specifically to buy Matt Ridley's The
Human Genome (which, as it happens, I recently did) and that bookstore
does
not have it, I will do one of two things - I will order it, or I will
go to
another bookstore the does carry it and purchase it there. What I will
NOT
do is take the same money and buy Martha Stewart's latest cookbook
instead,
because this is not what I want.
Guilt without logic is dangerous.
Show breeders are simply not responsible for the millions of
unplanned and unwanted mongrels produced in this country. Period. So
don't
let anyone make you feel guilty about it.
I do not understand why the top horse farms in this country are
not in the least embarrassed by the fact they make a lot of money doing
it,
yet in the world of dogs if one is to be respected, one is to lose
one's ass
financially. That is a load of horse shit, pure and simple, yet we
accept it
meekly and without question.
Why is that?
Basic economic theory suggests that if we are not turning a
profit, one of two things is wrong - we suffer from poor management, or
we
are not asking enough for our product to cover our production costs.
What are our costs?
Well, if we are breeding good dogs, besides basic food and
veterinary costs we ought to be adding in the costs of showing these
animals, and
advertising, and health testing, which are not expenses incurred by the
high
volume breeders (puppy mills).
OK, so we have much higher costs involved in producing our healthier,
sounder animals.
Yet the average pet shop puppy sells for about the same as the average
well bred pet
from show stock, and often they sell for much more.
What's wrong with this picture?
We're stupid that's what's wrong.
Q. Why does a Jaguar sell for ten times more than a Hundai?
A. Because it's worth more and everyone knows it.
"And everyone knows it" is the key phrase here, folks.
But somehow no one knows our puppies are worth more and we're
embarrassed
to tell them.
Why is that?
The difference between the sale price of a multi-million dollar
stallion and what he's worth as horse meat on any given day at a
livestock
auction is quality. Yet we cannot address this issue in dogs because we
are
embarrassed to talk about money and dogs in the same breath.
Why is that?
OK, I'll tell you, because someone has to come out and say this
sooner or later.
There is a war going on.
Unlike most wars, however, this one actually has three sides
rather than two.
We have Show breeders, who are producing a small number of
purebred dogs.
We have High-Volume breeders who are producing a large number of
purebred dogs.
We have Animal Rights Activists, who believe that neither group has the
right to breed or even own purebred dogs, much less make a profit at it.
While the first group is busy trying to get rid of the second group
because
they don't like the way they breed dogs (which by the way ain't gonna
happen
as long as the American public wants purebred dogs and the first group
won't
produce them) the third group is winning the war.
You think I'm making this up?
Then how come we've started saying we "placed" our puppies
instead of sold them?
We talk about the new "adoptive homes" instead of their new
owners.
What's next? Instead of price of a puppy, we'll charge an
"adoption fee?"
What's wrong with this new language?
I'll tell you -
We didn't come up with it, the Animal Rights Activists did - we
are just stupid enough to use it.
We are stupid because it's based on the premise that we have
no right to own dogs.
It is based on the premise that dog ownership is the moral
equivalent of human slavery, and that the species homo sapien has no
right
to use any other species for any purpose whatsoever, be it food,
clothing,
medical research, recreation or involuntary companionship.
Now, I don't know about you, but my politically incorrect opinion is:
Our species did not spend the last million years clawing our way to the
top of the food chain to eat tofu. The stuff tastes like shit no matter
how you cook it, and there is absolutely no sense pretending otherwise.
Zoology 101:
Animals who kill other animals for their primary food source are
called predators. Their eyes are generally on the front of their skulls,
they have teeth designed to tear flesh from bone, and a digestive system
designed to digest meat (like us). Animals that live primarily off
vegetation are called herbivores. They have better peripheral vision,
flat
teeth for grinding, and the most efficient of them have multiple
stomachs,
which we do not (like cows). And lastly, Animals who live primarily off
what
others have killed (carrion) are called scavengers (think about that
one long
and hard.)
Man like the canid, is a pack-hunting predator, which is
probably why we get along so well. (If that fact bothers you, get over
it.)
How did we get to the top of the food chain?
We are the most intelligent and efficient pack-hunters ever
to suck oxygen from the atmosphere, that's how.
We are certainly intelligent enough to understand that
maintaining that position on this small planet depends on responsible
stewardship, not guilt.
And we are so damned efficient that we can support a tremendous number
of scavengers in our midst. Like the Animal Rights Activists, for
instance.
(Me, I think we should dump the whole lot of them buck naked
in the Boundary Waters and see how well this equalitarian philosophy of
theirs plays out, but that's probably too politically incorrect for
anybody
else to consider. Sigh.)
So what do we do?
Well, to begin with we need to regain control. The first way we
do this is with language, which is the tool they have been using on us.
These people who don't want us to "own" dogs are likening
themselves to Abolitionists. That's a fallacy, unless you accept the
premise
that dogs are really little humans in fur coats, which frankly is an
insult
to a species that has never waged war on the basis of religious
differences.
No, the group they really resemble is the Prohibitionists-remember
them?
A particularly annoying bunch of zealots who firmly believed and somehow
managed to convince our duly elected representatives that alcohol was a
bad thing,
and any beverage containing it should be illegal in these United States
of America.
Very few Americans actually agreed with this, by the way, but by the
time
Congress got its head out of its collective you-know-what, a whole new
industry had developed--Organized Crime.
We look back at that whole debacle now and wonder how anything
that stupid and wrongheaded ever happened.
Well, boys and girls, in the inimitable words of the great Yogi
Berra: It's déjà vu all over again. The Prohibitionists are back.
And once again, we are buying it. Amazing.
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