agonyaunt | (no subject)

(no subject)

Dear Amy: I am one of four adult siblings, all in our 40s. One of my siblings and I have devoted ourselves to help counter the negative impacts of pet breeders and irresponsible pet owners, by fostering and spay/neuter volunteerism.

Recently, our sister announced that she will be buying a dog from a breeder!

She clearly is not interested in putting in the effort or caring about the impact of her actions.

Amy, I can't tell you how upset we are about this. The sister making this awful decision cannot be redirected. She has been enabled by our parents her entire life and, as an underdeveloped adult, lives in a bubble without any consideration of her impact on the environment.

How would you best recommend we handle this literal slap in the face?

-- Sibling of the Unconscionable

Dear Sibling: My first suggestion is that you stop seeing this as being about you and your values. This is about her and her values. She is not slapping you in the face; she is making a choice, which you vehemently disagree with.

She might be ignorant, wasteful and deliberately rejecting your activism.

So, message received.

You could respond by trying to create a "dog-neutral" balance to this behavior, by donating to a shelter the amount of money she paid for the dog, or by fostering a dog specifically in her honor.

https://www.arcamax.com/healthandspirit/lifeadvice/askamy/s-2272284?fs

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There are a few words and phrases that are automatic red flags to me, and "slap in the face" is one of them, unless you are talking about that one scene with Hermione and Draco. (I also don't like "walking on eggshells" or "resent".)

As usual, the person pulling out that phrase doesn't disappoint. In no possible way can this be construed as a personal insult, yet there they are, claiming it is!

For everybody's mental health, she ought to never speak to her sister again. Sis will probably thank me for this advice....

(Also, somebody's bound to say this, so no, "literally" does not mean "figuratively". It is an intensifier, and has been used as an intensifier, similarly to "really" and "truly", for several hundred years, or exactly as long as it's had its figurative meaning of "accurate, factual", including by such esteemed writers as Jane Austen and Mark Twain. The original meaning of "literal" is "of or relating to letters". If you wouldn't say "it wasn't real" in response to "this is really a slap in the face", don't say "it wasn't literal" in response to this.)

"as an underdeveloped adult, lives in a bubble without any consideration of her impact"

Wow, LW, with all that seething contempt for your sister just STEAMING off your letter, I can't imagine why she wouldn't gratefully obey any and all of your helpful directives about how to live her life!

I imagine it never actually occurred to you to... ask her why she wanted a dog of that specific breed, or talk to her about her own principles of pet ownership? (WITHOUT the assumption that she's immature and unenlightened and terrible, unlike your virtuous self.)

Anyway, it's too late, your awful sibling dynamic has calcified and you don't want to change it, you just want to bludgeon her with how Right and Good you are and how Wrong and Bad she is. My actual advice is "leave it alone and don't talk to her about pets ever, you'll both be happier that way."

I think I know who doesn't need to be invited over to play with the new puppy.

Honestly, as someone who's seen bad animal foster/rescue situations that end up being medical and behavioural neglect, and having adopted animals from rescues that turned out not to have done their due diligence about medical issues: I can 100% understand if having the LW and co as siblings made their sister more determined to get a puppy from a reputable breeder!

And there are no reputable breeders? I am so deeply suspicious of this person off the top, quite aside from what a terrible person they are about their sister. Perhaps you are just a jerk, LW?

Speaking as someone who grew up in the country and all our family dogs (to the present) were dumped (except two Golden Retrievers my dad got for us to play with and on occasion, warn of rattlesnakes or possums or water moccasins), came from a shelter, or were a rehoming for friend's dog--seriously?

1.) There is nothing wrong with getting a dog from a reputable, responsible breeder. Ever. Under certain conditions, in fact, it's far preferable. A responsible pet owner matches the dog to their own physical capabilities, lifestyle, home, climate, presence of children, other existing pets, finances, and time commitment. The stricter those factors are, the more they need to reduce the number of variables in choice of pet, and selecting by breed is a good way to do that.

2.) Any and all dogs are going to have variables whether purebred or not, but a shelter or rescue dog is generally going to have a lot more unknown variables, and very likely some behavior variables, health variables, or both. Matching a rescue or shelter dog to above life factors is going to take quite a bit of guesswork and require those factors be very flexible or even discardable. Acting like those factors don't or shouldn't matter, or believing that anyone can make it work if they just try hard enough is irresponsible and unethical at best and dangerous at worst.

3.) This isn't a zero sum game.

The sister in question did not abandon/neglect/dump on a farm road/fail to spay or neuter/indiscriminately breed those dogs; irresponsible pet owners did it. A dog is not in the shelter because she callously refused to adopt it; it's there because of someone else's neglect.

If the sister did not get that dog from a breeder, that would have no effect on the number of dogs at the shelters, the number of irresponsible owners, and the dog from the breeder would continue to exist, as she did not selfishly bring it into existence on the strength of her wanting it and it won't vanish from spacetime if she doesn't. Her getting this dog from a breeder is equivalent to her not getting a dog at all; the number of shelter dogs and purebreed dogs that exist remain entirely unchanged and so is the environmental impact.

Reputable breeders are not the reason shelters are full of abandoned and neglected dogs. The reason those dogs are in shelters would be, again, the actions of irresponsible pet owners. If all reputable breeders and purebreds vanished, someone who really wants a miniature poodle is not gonna sub in a pitt mix even if you superglue cotton in poodle formation on it or duct-tape a mop to a chihuahua-terrier for someone who loves Maltese; they'll either go to backyard breeders or not get a dog at all.

I want a Yorkie; I cannot afford one at this time. The absence of a Yorkie in my life--a Yorkie-shaped hole, if you will--cannot be filled by a Labrador-Pekingnese from the shelter, so I have no dog. I do have six rabbits, but they fill the rabbit-shaped hole in my life, perhaps one might say to overflowing and then some.

As someone who lived near a park where irresponsable breeders regularly dumped unwanted puppies, sometimes too young to survive even with care, I can see how a person who dedicates themselves to animal rescue can come to see all breeders as bad, having on the regular seen only the worst (kind of how we distrust all police or politicians until proven otherwise). But, activists can get too narrow minded, and cause the opposite effect (like my 'meat is murder!!!' sis who makes me crave a hamburger), specially if they don't tune down the self-righteous tendencies.

Am I the only one stuck on "Unconscionable"?

I mean...Unconscionable?

Dear LW:
Without responsible dog breeders, we would not have Labradors for guide dogs for blind people or beagles for fruit-and-vegetable quarantine dogs.

This LW is just a fucking PEACH. Just, ugh. This is the kind of behaviour that makes people want to react out of pure spite.

Dear LW: please cut off all contact with your sister. That'll show her.

Dear LW's sister: oh my God I am so sorry you were saddled with such a sanctimonious sibling. Ignore them. Enjoy your new puppy.

Although I would totally get the judginess if sis was getting her dog from the pet store - or from one of the breeders that have red flag warnings of irresponsibility (e.g. have puppies of multiple breeds for sale, breeders that don't include clauses about buyers being required to spay/neuter, breeder's that sell puppies just to whomever offers them money without talking to or meeting the prospective buyer to determine if they and the breed are a good match for each other, breeder's that don't offer any kind of puppy health guarantee, breeder's that don't include clauses about being willing to take back any dogs they have sold if the prospective buyer has to give the dog up).

There are a lot more irresponsible breeders than just the backyard breeders or puppy mills.

That said, there are also plenty of responsible breeders who love what they do and who do so with good responsibility and as long as sis was buying a puppy for what it actually cost with good care (aka responsible breeder prices not discount shortcut breeder prices) I wouldn't be judgy about it.

We're mostly a rescue dog family, but my brother has over they years gotten a couple of dogs from breeders when they've wanted specific breeds.

I would like to add to all of this that reading this thread has really, really put our current situation integrating a new cat with one that is less-than-happy about it (also, new kitty has not quite learned to control her claws, sigh)in perspective.

TL;DR I have a LOT of baggage around dog breeding and I still think the LW is a jerk whose sister isn't buying a dog AT her.

I don't ... get desiring a specific breed of dog. Or maybe I do? My mom was a backyard breeder of shar peis while I was growing up. Her reasons were that she "liked puppies" and that "neutering is mean." She also never got around to doing the AKC paperwork, despite all of our animals being show/breeding quality, which. Ugh.

For a couple of years I was the person who took primary care of 5-6 adult dogs and 5-10 puppies at a time, including breaking up fights and keeping our unaltered male (the chillest dog ever, thank god) away from the ones in heat. Every litter ended with my dad selling the adolescent dogs for $100 each in front of wal-mart.

I used to beg my mom to let us go to a shelter and adopt a dog in the far off hypothetical future of "when it's time to get our next dog". And the answer was always that she "wanted shar peis" and "didn't like mutts".

IDK. I'm a cat person now. Cats come in two shapes: cat and fancy.

Anyway, my ideal world would have no dogs or cats being bred for anything other than service-animal and possibly working-animal jobs, and all pets coming from a rescue situation. Then if we get to a point where the domestic cat and dog look like they might go extinct we can talk about ethical breeding again. That is obviously not going to happen in my lifetime, so I adopt my cats and donate to a couple of known-to-be-good shelters when I can.

This LW is ab absolute tool if ever I sw one. And I don't think Any was harsh enough in shutting down this BS but then she never is.

On a personal note, come on now. We cannot just neuter eeeevery animal. Most yes. And most pet owners, where I live anyway, who don't have their animals neutered are responsible. With things like allergies and different breeds showing different levels of activity (whether walking or playing), and various behaviours I do think it is better for the DOG that their personality traits are best matched to the home they are placed in.

My family has lhasa apsos ( 2 KC certified but neutered/spayed and 1 mutt who is a lhasa some-sort-of-terrier as we adopted him from a cousin who didn't buy responsibly and was told he's a pure lhasa which lolno). We have lhasas because we have chronic illnesses and can't always take the dogs on long walks. That would be neglectful if we had a collie or a lab. As it stands my dog runs away when he sees his lead! I went to the dog's trust when I was going to get a dog but frankly, I didn't know dogs. If there had been a problem I would not have been able to help that dog. I could have harmed that dog.

Now? I feel when the time comes (hopefully a long way off. He's 7 and lhasas can go 15) that I could go look at the small, less active rescues and have the confidence to go help someone.

Tl;dr back to question, the ignorant person in this letter is the writer.

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