This is a lot easier than passing and enforcing realistic animal cruelty laws that would shut down these puppy mills and provide protection for abused pets/animals.

Right. Easier and showier to blame pet stores, and more satisfying for activists to force business practices on them.

And you people keep moving here to escape the insane hell you have made California, only to vote for the same stupid shit here. California needs the wall, to keep y'all from continuing to infect us.

I disagree, I think puppy mills should be shut down.

So target the puppy mills, not the stores.

I also don't quite understand why you can't buy a dog from a breeder that isn't a puppy mill. Rescue dogs are for a specific demographic. They aren't recommended for families with kids.

Maybe this will result in an uptick of "Farmer Joe's bitch just whelped"

I also don't quite understand why you can't buy a dog from a breeder that isn't a puppy mill. Rescue dogs are for a specific demographic. They aren't recommended for families with kids.

Humans are often picky creatures and they're proud of that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JvtlB_NzI8

I disagree, I think puppy mills should be shut down.

So target the puppy mills, not the stores.

NicoleK at January 1, 2019 7:50 AM

First, define a *Puppy Mill” then tell us how many additional tax dollars you are will to donate on top of the massive amount you already pay so that some poorly trained government official can walk around with a check sheet determining what is a “puppy mill” what is not a “puppy mill” and then filing the appropriate court case to put them out of businesses?

Perhaps you would prefer to skip straight to a no knock raid with a swat team, based on anonymous tips?

Easier and showier to blame pet stores, and more satisfying for activists to force business practices on them. ~ Amy Alkon at January 1, 2019 6:20 AM

More satisfying because they can point to an empty space that used to be a thriving business and say "I closed that down."

Pet stores were the real targets all along. Animal activist have hated them for long time.

Rescue or shelter dogs can be crazy. Not what you want if you have children. People drop the unruly dogs (or dogs they don't know how to train) at the shelter. Abused dogs may never get over it. This seems way beyond what the state has any right to legislate on.

"I disagree, I think puppy mills should be shut down"

The problem is: how is there any guarantee that shelters are treating their animals humanely? Especially now that there is a government-created market for their services? It appears that the law and its backers just assume that shelters are morally above reproach, and that all breeders are tainted with original sin. Yes, abusive mills should face sanctions, but the state is making a moral judgement here that isn't supported by either evidence or common sense.

My wife and I have cats, and all the cats we have had have been rescues -- either from a shelter, or ones we rescued ourselves. Having said that, rescue animals aren't for everybody. As others have pointed out above, you are never really sure how a rescue animal is going to work out, either health-wise or behavior-wise. You have to spend some time working with them.

And as Isab points out, this is a foot in the door for the activists. Next up: prohibiting the breeding of farm animals, under the premise that they are "genetically modified".

This won't solve PETA's killing animals because they can't admit they live better lives with humans.

This is a lot easier than passing and enforcing realistic animal cruelty laws

I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark here and guess that such laws already exist. The problem, as Isab points out, is how do you enforce them.

I don't have any particular problem with basically shutting pet store animal sales down (they still have a business in selling food, toys and other accessories, after all). Small time breeders are generally animal lovers themselves making a bit of money on the side, so are much more likely to treat them well. The problem is going to be when puppy mills transform into breeders. Then you get the problem of how to define a breeder, and oops, unintended consequences.

On rescue animals - all bar one of my cats have been rescues. One had been badly mistreated for a few years and was absolutely vicious. It took three or four months of gently picking her and putting her down (to show her she wasn't going to be tormented) until she stopped trying to sink her teeth into my hand. She turned into the most friendly and affectionate cat you would ever see. But I never did trust her around kids, under stress she would revert to her default "grab me and I'll claw your eyes out" behaviour.

Rescue or shelter dogs can be crazy. Not what you want if you have children. People drop the unruly dogs (or dogs they don't know how to train) at the shelter.

Sorry, but this statement is idiotic. Most rescued dogs are healthy and make great pets. There is a small % that have been abused, and the people who adopt them are due a great reward. But that vast majority are simply "accidental" puppies, and likely to be healthy and balanced, unlike the "purebreds" who are just as likely to be "inbreds."

If you want a "breed," seek out a reputable breeder. If you want a dog, go to one of the many, many rescue organizations. The people who volunteer there get to know the dogs well, and can tell you whether a particular dog is good for your circumstances. They don't want a bad placement, either, as the dog is very likely to come back.

Next step is legislating that all edible meat products have a chain of documentation from the moment of conception of the source critter until the canning or cellophaning of the meat chunk, showing the meat was treated respectfully and humanely along the entire processing chain.
The consumer (pun alert) will also have to be registered and will have to be able to show on demand and at biennial audit that the meat was prepped, cooked and eaten humanely and respectfully and had an unhurried stress free passage through the consumer's bowels. The audit will also ensure that the consumer is not acting out a gender bias of the source animals zir is eating.

"to keep y'all from continuing to infect us"

Okay. We'll quit bringing money to Nevada and you quit turning your daughters out at the Bunny Ranch.

Deal?

You can define puppy mills by objective parameters such as how many litters per year each bitch has, how much space they have etc.

I'm not cool with it being legal to abuse animals like that. Just because laws cost money to enforce doesn't mean we don't need laws, that's the stupidest thing I ever heard. We could do away with laws altogether, that would be cheaper!

I mean, how do you know people aren't abusing their kids? Having laws against abusing kids means we have to raid everyone's house to make sure they aren't being abused and that is expensive! So let's do away with laws abusing kids!

No, you pass laws requiring people to not abuse, and then you assume people are following them unless you have reason to think otherwise, same with any other law.

First, all of you who are saying shelter and/or rescue dogs are so crazy and not safe to have around kids - go pound sand. My first Boxer I bought from a local breeder - had great results with him, he was the best.damn.dog.ever. When it came time for another Boxer, I went to the breed-specific rescue. My mom swore up and down I'd never get another dog as good as the first, especially since I was getting an older dog from a rescue. Eventually I adopted 3 different Boxers from that rescue, and they were all very successful rescues. Now, only one of those could hold a candle to my original Boxer as far as personality, but the temperaments were all stellar, and best companions and family dogs I ever had.

What will pet stores pay for a rescued dog if that's the only source they can legally use? If I lacked all ethics and lived near CA, I'd be thinking about forming a "rescue" organization that got pets from puppy mills and sold them to pet stores with the proper paperwork. The only thing I have to figure out is how to disguise the payments to the puppy mills. It would be a non-profit, of course, which would pay me a huge salary.