Animal Rights Activists Make me Sick

As anyone who knows me well can attest to, I am absolutely animal crazy. I've had dogs almost my entire life, as well as rabbits, cats, chickens, ponies, horses, guinea pigs, fish and as of recent, mice (the domesticated variety, I'd much rather they be my spoiled pets than potential fodder for a hungry pet snake, although I understand that snakes need to eat, too). There's almost nothing I wouldn't do for an animal, and I would rather go hungry than see my animals go without their food. They are my kids, and although they all tend to drive me batty on occasion, I love them dearly.

I recently joined the Causes application on Facebook. Specifically to join a group vowing to help Stop Puppy Mills. In case you're unaware of what a puppy mill is, they're an absolutely abbhorent commercial dog breeding facilities for the purpose of supplying puppies for resale to pet stores and animal testing facilities. Check out the actual Stop Puppy Mills website for more information. I do have to forewarn you -- some of the pictures are extremely graphic and quite disturbing. Some of the videos are worse.

Anyway, I pointed out on the group that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, often known as PETA, is actually a horrible group for anyone caring about the welfare of our domesticated animals. Ingrid Newkirk, their national director, has stated several times that pet ownership is simply oppressing our animals and that it is cruel and wrong and needs to be stopped altogether. I can't knowingly support an organization that would like the entire idea of owning domesticated animals for the purpose of companionship abolished.

What is PETA's true hidden agenda here? Would they like us all to release our domesticated animals into the wild to have nature take it's course? Perhaps we should follow PETA's lead and destroy most animals entrusted in our care to spare them our oppressive ways?

If you don't believe me, please check out this website, or this one.

According to PeTA's own filings, in 2004 PeTA killed 86.3 percent of the animals entrusted to its care -- a number that's rising. Meanwhile, the SPCA in PeTA's home town (Norfolk, Va.) was able to find loving homes for 73 percent of the animals put in its care.

It makes me a little angry knowing that my $25 cheque each year -- entitling me to free address labels and a jazzy little quarterly newsletter -- was really going towards killing the very animals I was trying to help save.

The information above wasn't what made me stop sending them the money though. I've only recently found out about that.

What really got to me was their adamant stance on the 'cruel' sport of dogsledding.

Cruel? If only I could bound and gag Ms. Newkirk and stick her in a snowbank to watch me harness up a team of my Siberians before a run. If only she could see the way they dreaded the cruelty. It shows in the way their tails wag, the way they scream out their enthusiasm in a chorus, the way they jump into their harnesses, scratch at the gate to be let out and lunge at the end of their gangline ready to let loose and run. If you don't believe me, just come home with me one day and watch me unlace my sled from it's place in the shed. Bring earplugs though. There's a reason I'm one of the only prematurely hearing impaired 24 year olds I know.

The disappointment in my dogs' faces when I put it back in it's storage place will break your heart. So of course we'll go for a run. We have to. The dogs will plot our deaths if we don't.

But cruel?

If letting a dog do what they love to do the best; have the most fun they've had all day; do what it is imprinted in their genetics to want to do, is cruel, then tell the dogs -- I'm sure they'll understand. Before they plot your death of course.

These dogs love their 'job'. They live for it. We couldn't force them to do anything they don't want to do. Trust me. I've tried my dad's Goldens in harness. Dogs won't do what they don't want to do. And 120 lbs. worth of a Golden duo IS enough to hold up 250 lbs. of husky muscle. Just for your information.

As three time Iditarod champion Jeff King has said, you can't push a rope, and if the dogs decide not to pull, well, that musher isn't going anywhere. Just ask DeeDee Jonrowe, whose hopes were crushed in the 1999 race when her veteran team of dogs stopped and made it clear they'd had enough. The same thing happened to others in Iditarod 2000, with several teams simply stopping and declining to move one step closer to Nome, despite the musher's best entreaties, a rebellion that earned the dogs a plane ride home, not sudden death.

I'm on a tangent though.

The point of this was that I posted my views on this group and my anti-PETA remarks apparently offended some ignorant little moron who felt the need to call me some choice names and tell me that by showing dogs, I am oppressing the very animals I claim to love.

I love that word.. oppression. What does it mean?

op·pres·sion [uh-presh-uhn]
–noun
1. the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner.
2. an act or instance of oppressing.
3. the state of being oppressed.
4. the feeling of being heavily burdened, mentally or physically, by troubles, adverse conditions, anxiety, etc.

So essentially, this little ignoramus believes that my dogs (who would rather be with their people than anywhere else) are being treated cruelly by being bathed, going on a car ride (this is just one of their favorite things), visiting all the other dogs, and being petted and trotted around a show ring.

Again.. tell the dogs this. My Siberian hasn't been in a show ring in almost 3 years and she's miserable. It was our special time together, where she got more attention in one weekend than she did for months before (I'm referring to the attention from judges, fellow fanciers and spectators of course.. tell me how one person can compete with hundreds?). Although she despised bath time (what dog truly enjoys it?), it was a minor evil compared to getting to go to a dog show. Even now, 3 years later, the words 'dog show' cause her to perk up her ears in a way that only 'cookie' and 'walk' can.

You can't make a dog do anything they don't want to do. It's the biggest reason every show breeder I know has at least one 'show prospect' in their backyard who is finishable (meaning they can win enough to obtain 10 points at CKC sanctioned conformation shows, therefore obtaining the title of 'Canadian Champion' or being 'finished') but who will never see the show ring again. They didn't thrive in the hustle and bustle of our fancy, and as I've mentioned, you can't get a dog to do anything they don't want to do.

However, oppression it is not.



Extremists scare me. In any form. Animal Rights extremists are the worst of the bunch.

Organizations like PETA fund terrorist movements (the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front both recieve generous donations from them, and are both classified as terrorist organization by the FBI), which means Animal rights extremists have no problem resorting to violence.

Even the wonderful Ms. Newkirk has publicly admitted this much.

"Our nonviolent tactics are not as effective. We ask nicely for years and get nothing. Someone makes a threat, and it works."
- Ingrid Newkirk, PeTA, US News and World Report, April 8, 2002

They have been convicted of arson, they bomb university research labs (conveniently overlooking the injurious and life-threatening hazards to first-responders, firefighters, pedestrians and motorists created when emergency vehicles dash to the conflagrations created by their "freedom fighters) , and brutally beat or threaten those who don't share their views.

They have no problem using scare tactics on children. PETA made the news in 2005 when they handed out activist comics with a scary looking man tearing the innards out of a fish on the cover. Plastered over the picture in big letters, it says, "Your Daddy Kills Animals."

They post tactless ads in the same thread every year. 3 years ago at Easter, I remember driving down the Yellowhead to see a giant billboard with the words "He Died for your Sins" and a Pig. The message -- Go Vegetarian.

Animal rights nuts have no problem coming to dog shows and letting loose our napping canine companions from the safety of their crates and x-pens, believing their work is for the greater good, namely releasing the beloved 'oppressed' pets. The result?

Disoriented dogs running amok -- dog fights, pandemonium and worse, dogs escaping from the show building or site, running onto the busy roadway, being hit by a car and dying.

How is this not the true oppression?

After all, they have the power as the opposable thumbed species to open the doors and allow the dogs to run to their fates, which are sometimes quite cruel.

Are you a pet owner? Drop the term 'animal rights' from your vocabulary right now, use the words 'animal welfare' instead. Why?

Animal rights, as a philosophical viewpoint, is fundamentally different from animal welfare, since it maintains that animals are not ours to use at all-for food, clothing, entertainment (including companionship), or experimentation.

Animal Welfare endorses the responsible use of animals to satisfy certain human needs - from companionship and sport, to uses that involve the taking of life, such as for food, clothing, and medical research. Animal welfare advocates seek to ensure that all animals used by humans have their basic needs fulfilled in terms of food, shelter, and health, and that they experience no unnecessary suffering in providing for human needs.

Oh, and the next time you see Pamela Anderson -- ask her how she likes being a dog owner.