If I see one more newspaper article about impending anti-dog legislation describing opponents as “animals rights activists”, I think I’ll be throwing red paint on that reporter!
To reiterate:
Most animal rights organizations, such as PETA, have, as one of their ultimate objectives, the end of all pet ownership, regardless of the species or breed of animal. They see breed bans and mandatory spay/neuter as a means to that end.
Accordingly, they fully support the implementation of breed-specific legislation. Not only don’t they fight it, but they often provide behind-the-scenes advice to those legislators to include as many restrictions as possible on owning and breeding dogs of many different types.
Publicly, they will not come right out and support the killing of existing dogs, although that is a natural consequence of breed banning. In reality, however, they are more than willing to get their hands dirty “euthanizing” dogs of any breed, as shown in the following articles:
Animal welfare organizations are concerned with the proper treatment of owned animals, whether they are pets, working animals, farm animals, or animals ultimately destined to become food. They are also heavily involved in rehoming lost, abandoned, and surrendered pets.
Dog legislation activists tend to focus on the rights of people rather than the rights of animals. They are often active in animal welfare roles as well, but the focus of their legislation activism is the right of a citizen to be treated the same as any other citizen, regardless of the dog that they own.
This includes the right to own property, the right to be safe from arbitrary and discriminatory search and seizure, the right to live where they want to live, the right to walk down a street without fear of vigilantism and harassment, and the right to be unmolested by authorities because of their dog’s appearance.
Media people, please get it right!
I am not an “animal rights activist”. In fact, that’s getting pretty close to libel, because I do not ever want to be associated with organizations like PETA and I believe that my own reputation, and that of my colleagues, is damaged each time a reporter gets it wrong.
Don’t misunderstand me. I am absolutely against any form of animal cruelty, regardless of species or breed. Throughout my life, I have fought to save numerous pets and I believe strongly in effective anti-cruelty legislation.
But, please, don’t lump me in with PETA, or the badly named Humane Society of the United States, or Animal People News, or Animal Advocates of British Columbia. We are NOT the same animal!
- I do not want to be associated with any organization that is dedicated to ending the ownership of all pets.
- I do not want to be associated with any organization that secretly kills dogs when pretending to be rescuing them.
- I do not want to be associated with any organization that is willing to lie, steal, and cheat to prevent me from owning the dog of my choice and that, given a fraction of an opportunity, would take that dog from me and kill it.
- I do not want to be associated with any organization that uses its contributors’ funds to do the exact opposite of what many of its members believe is being done.