Concerning Pets as a Commodity

A letter has been circulating from someone who defends pet stores because they don't euthanize the dogs and shelters do, and she bought two dogs in a pet store and they are wonderful dogs. "I do not agree with not allowing pet stores to never be able to sell pets. People have been selling pets for centuries. Are you going to say that you cannot buy fish for aquariums. Look at all of the meat we sell in grocery stores. Just like anything else, nothing is for free and it is just another form of business."


The following was sent to us in response to that letter:
For two years I have immersed my life into the lives of animals. Owning an animal or having a pet is much different than saving the lives of multiple rescued animal relations. Our rescue efforts are a 24-hour-a-day job -- there are NO BREAKS -- your life is not your own. There is no way a pet store can adequately take care of one of our animal relations from 9-5, or even 9-9; animals require constant care, especially puppies. Emergencies, clean-up and medication distribution are constant.


I can safely say that many of the animals we have rescued were bought from either a backyard breeder or a pet store (puppy mill casualty) and ended up in a shelter or relinquished by their owner. Animals are euthanized in shelters because humans abandoned, abused or relinquished them and many of these animals came from pet stores in the first place! Don't blame humane societies or shelters for human inadequacy.

Animals are not commodities, They are lives and no one should be in the business of making money off lives of which we are responsible. What we do to animals for human consumption is disgusting and disgraceful and what humans do to animals for ownership is slavery.


Are there exceptions? Absolutely. But no one should use their personal experience to make an absolute statement about others that are silenced, unseen and abused. The mass majority of the lives coming to pet stores have lived their short lives in suffering. To make money at the suffering of others is immoral, unjust and inhumane and puppy mills are all that.

Peace & Hooves,
Remember our Animal Relations~
Janice Jordan