£ Kerchinnggg!
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£ Kerchinnggg!
Get a cat.
Oh no.....have I opened another can of worms?
I hope you are not breeding worms when there are so many worms that need re-homing.
I can see where longdogs is coming from and I appreciate that dog rescue compounds have far far too many dogs but, if you take longdogs argument to the limit, you could equally argue that we should adopt children before 'breeding' our own or not have children at all because there are too many living off of rubbish heaps in Indian slums. Its sort of an anti capitalism argument also (not that I'm any great capitalist) but dog breeders breed dogs that people want to buy don't they? They are satisfying a demand. And surely the biggest problem with regard to dog rescue centres is that people get dogs but then can't look after them. Anecdotally I suspect that a high proportion of people that pay a lot of money for a dog will not be the type of people who can't look after them. In Skipton recently for example three working border collies all sold from specialist breeders for upwards of £4,500!!
Aww very cute...xQuote:
Originally Posted by simgreen78
Most of the dogs i am talking about die before they ever reach a rescue centre. As far as i know we don't kill excess children that nobody wants, nor do we deliberately breed deformed ones for money.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stolly
Purely in economic terms yes, dog breeders satisfy a demand. If they were manufacturing an inanimate object, fine, but these are sentient beings. It's quite incorrect that people are more capable of looking after a dog if they pay good money for it- simply wrong, there's loads of data to support that. If people were educated about the myths that they believe- we know what we're getting, we can train it how we like, we need this breed to do that job etc etc, there wouldn't be such a market. No doubt i come across as over emotional about it, and probably i am, but i can promise you i haven't made this stuff up. Over the last 10 years or so i've read thousands of journals, research papers and books, and seen hundreds of individual cases, and its quite clear that these myths are not true. They seem common-sensical, just as it seemed quite common-sensical once that you would sail off the end of the world, but they are not true.
If anyone wants to bite the bullet and face their ingrained prejudice, feel free to PM me and i can direct you to some of the data.
P.S an anecdote you might like... yesterday i killed a 9 month old Rottweiler with possible orthopaedic disease. The owners weren't willing to pay for either diagnosis or treatment because a new dog is cheaper. If you think that's an unrepresentative tale, come and walk in my shoes for a week.
Longdogs I appreciate that you work in the front line of all this and are also a massive dog lover and very emotionally attached to the plight to dogs in rescue pounds but don't you think that its emotional blackmail to say that anybody who wants a dog must take on a rescued dog rather than buy a puppy of their choice?
I have a client who is a vet by the way who, despite all of the trauma and troubles of the job, seems to get by okay, drawing earnings in excess of £150,000 a year! Not typical I'm sure but, as an owner of two cats and now one dog and various pets before these, many pet owners might also criticise vet fees and, you never know, the cost of vet treatments themselves I'm sure lead some (horrible) pet owners to discard or in your example have put down unwanted pets. I'm not really having a pop at vets here (our local vets are brilliant) but in a round about way what I'm trying to say is that all sorts of things lead to there being too many unwanted cats and dogs in rescue centres and its certainly not all because breeders sell puppies.
Bit harsh that LD.Quote:
Originally Posted by Longdogs
Hang on a minute commodity(Longdogs), Stolly is quite right. If we apply your principle on dogs to children, then we'd come to the conclusion that it is evil to want your own children, because thousands of kids around the world are destitue and will die without somebody to bring them up. So, how dare you put your own desires before the world's orphans.( I noticed that at least one of those who agreed with your position have children of their own)Quote:
Originally Posted by Longdogs
Some of your other arguments are incorrect as well. There are many cases in the world where parents with mental and physical defects have children knowing full well that their children will inherit the same characteristics. In addition one country has killed children that were beyond the parent's quota.
So no, your defense is nonsense just like your earlier arguments.
The way I see it, commodity alias Longdogs is pointing the finger and she's got three fingers pointing back. Some time ago she was telling us that she increasingly believed that animals were being just treated as commodities(hence the new nickname I've coined for her). When I pointed out that she was a Vet and Vets made money out of animals, she went ahead and blamed her lack of integrity on having to make a living!
Other things come to mind as well. When she didn't want one of her own dogs(which appear to me to be a particular breed) she found it a new home. Nothing wrong with that from my point of view, but there would be if I was complaining of animals being used as 'commodities.'
In fact if you look at the situation properly, she found herself in the same position as many of the people she's complaining about. Of not wanting her dog anymore and palming it off to some very nice new owners. In other words treating it like a commodity. And if the new owners hadn't of wanted HER dog, but wanted a breed puppy instead, they would be very wrong and evil.
Doesn't that make anyone connected to animals in their line of work lacking in integrity, including farmers? Why don't you bury the hatchet with Longdogs and move on?Quote:
Originally Posted by christopher leigh
It's only blackmail if you can harm someone when they don't do what you want.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stolly
Your client has an exceptional salary. Most vets won't earn a quarter of that. I never said the problem was all caused by breeders, that's just how the thread started.
Vets fees- it would be an interesting proposition to present each bill with a copy of the equivalent cost to the NHS for equatable human treatment. When the man comes to service the x-ray machine, it doesn't cost less because its used on animals. Neither do the other overheads, wages, pharmaceuticals etc. Does a surveyor charge less because he likes houses? Or a dentist because she likes teeth? We already earn way less than equivalently qualified professionals. I'm not complaining about that, but vets fees are cheap! A pet is a luxury item, not an essential. There is insurance for those who need it. I'm sure fees contribute to abandoned animals- but should we encourage irresponsible ownership by giving our services for free? In genuine cases we often do.. but on the whole how would it make it better?
It's not often I write on here but this thread has held my interest as it clearly has a lot of others.
In terms of medical support I truly wish that all human doctors/nurses were as concerned for their patients as all the vets and vet techs have been towards my pets (yes they are pets not working animals). Christmas Eve last year staples were needed in a wound in one of our cats; an hour later having walked through the snow the on call vet inserted staples. This is typical of the service my pets have received across the country and I am grateful. I have BUPA cover through work but it does not come close to the service provided to my animals. Don't be ill in this county at the weekend as a human, you are on your own.
So, vets are good people doing great work and, whilst I don't always pay my bill with a smile on my face, its paid on time and willingly. Oh, and the waiting rooms are always clean and smell of disinfectant, not something you can always say for the NHS.
Thats me for another year.
No not really, because farmers in general don't moan about animals being commodities. My point which you don't seem to understand, is if you object to animals being treated as commodities then you don't, erm treat animals as commodities.Quote:
Originally Posted by mr brightside
It's a bit like me being vegetarian on the grounds of not liking the way animals are killed, whilst employed as a slaughterhouse Man.
One last point: there is no hatchet with 'commodity'(Longdogs). She's said her piece and others including me have said theirs.
LD I'm not at all inferring that vet fees aren't good value; that has nothing to do with it at all. What I was saying is that vet fees, with certain people, can contribute to the number of dogs that are discarded and passed on the rescue pounds . Equally little old grannies dying and leaving their dogs homeless do, people who buy a dog 'for Christmas' and can't then cope do, dogs that run away with no identity tags or chip do and, I'm sure, loads and loads of other reasons all mean that dogs unfortunately end up in the pound.Quote:
Originally Posted by Longdogs
People who sell purposely bred puppies on the other hand don't directly contribute to any dogs going into pounds - they just reduce the rate of take up of rescue dogs because some people choose to prefer to buy a bred puppy. I don't think they necessarily deserve you to dump on them or dump on people who choose to buy dogs from them just because of their indirect influence on the population of dog pounds. Its like you're blaming the least guily first.
Agree totally Uncle. When ever I've proposed getting rid of the NHS, the idea has always been met with hysteria. People can't imagine a private health system that doesn't operate on the principle of extortion. Yet if they only looked at veterinary medicine and drew the correct conclusions, they'd see if not realise, what was possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Great Uncle Bulgaria
Vets are not like the doctors and consultants in the NHS. They(Vets) have to compete on the free market for their customers, and if they don't do a good job they lose those same people. In the NHS if you book to see a consultant, you'll probably be fobbed off with a junior doctor, whilst the consultant sits in his office writing for the Lancet. No competiton, no incentive to please customers.
Yes I like vets. I even get one to come and check on Mr Benn every so often. That's a sight to behold.
You're right Stoll, although I'd go as far as to say she's blaming those who bare no guilt. It's a moral inversion of the worst kind. If you go to your example of children, then she'd be blaming the couple who want their own children for the fate of children orphaned.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stolly
It's called the 'commodity' principle: Condemn the innocent and sanctify the feckless.
Yes, imagine a scenario where an extremely intelligent high achieving child develops great interest in and empathy with animals, undertakes an ultra long, hard and expensive training in order to fulfil their ideal of helping animals, and then when their dream seems at last to be coming true finds that somehow it has changed into a nightmare - they are working in an abattoir. No other health professionals are required both to care for ill patients and kill healthy ones.Quote:
Originally Posted by Longdogs