Dog Breeds Red-flagged by Junk Mail

Kelly says:

While I can understand you don’t want to promote dog fighting or animal cruelty, there are many, in fact most, pet owners who have the “restricted” breed of dog or pet and they aren’t abusing them. By restricting the sale and ultimately ownership of these pets its unfair to the animal. What will happen to the puppies that can’t be sold? We have had boerboel/mastiff, doberman and rottwielers, all as family pets. All have been fantastic. Why should these breeds be phased out because some people abuse them.

People who are intent on abuse and or dog fighting will breed their own or find a way to acquire what they want.

All the while no restriction is applied to things like cattle destined to be slaughtered by inexperienced people, running a high risk that the animal will suffer. The same goes for most live stock, chickens, goats, sheep and pigs.

And what about then imposing restrictions on small cheap pets that are bought predominantly for children, mice, rats, rabbits, guinea pigs and hamsters. 90% of which will live in squalid conditions, in tiny cages and kids forget to feed them? While high end pets, like sugar gliders and hedgehogs are far less likely to be forgotten when people go on holiday. Yet those are the ones with restrictions.

The reason given that we cannot advertise these pets is that they basically being abused, used for fighting in the case of the dogs, or “exotic” and being caged. What pets aren’t “exotic”? What pet is native to your home environment? Someone who has paid handsomely for an exotic pet will 99% of the time house it properly, feed it well and seek the proper medical attention for it. As opposed to your average rabbit owner who paid a small fee for it, will most likely interbreed it, won’t even notice it’s sick and probably never take it to a vet, specialized or not. You can just replace it at your nearest pet shop for R50, that is cheaper than taking it to the vet.

I just think that when you start restricting some animals, where does it stop? A reason can be thought up to restrict any animal ownership if you think hard enough. Every kind animal out there is or has been abused by someone somewhere. These people are the problem, a small minority, why should the average animal lover now have to suffer for their ineptness and/or cruelty.