[ SHOWGSD-L ] Article - Pentimento
- From: "Ginger Cleary" <cleary1414@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Showgsd-L@Freelists. Org" <showgsd-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:13:53 -0400
If you forward be sure to keep the title and author name intact.....
-----Original Message-----
Pentimento
By Diane Klumb
PRIDE & PREJUDICE
Rather than the spate of hate-mail I was expecting. I received a
surprising amount of support from breeders both new and old who, as it turns
out, feel exactly the same way, but simply hadnâ??t the nerve to say anything
publicly in the current climate.
Well, God knows I have my failings (and both my friends and detractors
would, Iâ??m sure, be more than glad to itemize them for me if asked!) but
Iâ??m pretty sure one of them is not lack of nerve, so here it comes, folks â??
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 â??placedâ??...weâ??ll address that
particular idiocy later¼) 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 couldnâ??t see the logic then and I canâ??t see it now (although today
I would maybe refrain from suggesting that we bundle up Sister Edlitaâ??s
meatloaf and actually send it to the poor starving children in Africa¼)
Look at it this way:
If I go to a bookstore specifically to buy Matt Ridleyâ??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 â?? 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 Stewartâ??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 donâ??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 oneâ??s ass
financially. That is a load of horseshit, 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 â?? we suffer from poor management, ore 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.
Whatâ??s wrong with this picture?
Weâ??re stupid thatâ??s whatâ??s wrong.
Q. Why does a Jaguar sell for ten times more than a Hundai?
A. Because itâ??s worth more and everyone knows it.
â??And everyone knows itâ?? is the key phrase here, folks. But somehow no
one knows our puppies are worth more and weâ??re embarrassed to tell them.
Why is that?
The difference between the sale price of a multi million dollar stallion
and what heâ??s worth as horsemeat 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, Iâ??ll tell you, because someone has to come 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 donâ??t like the way they breed dogs (which by the way ainâ??t
gonna happen as long as the American public wants purebred dogs and the first
group wonâ??t produce them) the third group is winning the war.
You think Iâ??m making this up?
Then how come weâ??ve started saying we â??placedâ?? our puppies instead
of sold them?
We talk about the new â??adoptive homesâ?? instead of their new owners¼
Whatâ??s next? Instead of price of a puppy, weâ??ll charge an â??adoption
fee?â??
Whatâ??s wrong with this new language?
Iâ??ll tell you â??
We didnâ??t come up with it, the Animal Rights Activists did â?? we are
just stupid enough to use it.
We are stupid because itâ??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 donâ??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 form 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 other have killed (carrion) are
called scavengers (think about that one long and hard¼)
Man like the canid, is a pack-hunting predator, which is probably why we
get along so well. (If that facto bothers you, get over it¼)
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, thatâ??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 instance¼
(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 thatâ??s probably too politically incorrect for anybody else to
consider¼sigh¼)
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 donâ??t want us to â??ownâ?? dogs are likening
themselves to Abolitionists. Thatâ??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, 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:
Itsâ??s Déjà vu all over again¼
The Prohibitionists are back.
And once again, we are buying it¼amazing
---------------------------------------------
Ginger Cleary,Rome, GA www.rihadin.com
'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of
individual liberty have been eroded. F.von Hayek
Member GSDCA
Member Sawnee Mtn Kennel Club
GA Director RDOES.
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