We need legislation that makes it illegal to feed and provide shelter (usually little more than a shed) for free-roaming cats. You feed them, you own them, and are therefore responsible for neuter/spaying, shots and treatment for fleas, worms, mites and other infectious agents that they carry and that can be passed onto humans.

State Public Health Care Departments have taken the easy, most politically neutral route – they have bought into ‘trap-neuter-return’ propaganda. YOU, the person who must deal with the booming cat colony happily fed by your irresponsible neighbor (who is flat denial that they are HIS cats), must PAY 60-100 bucks per cat to have this done. YOU must trap them and take them to a facility and you must continue to live with their endless crapping all over your property. Your property is one big cat litter box when they neighbors have 18-30 cats pumped out each year. YOU must live with the housefly overpopulation, since they breed like flies – just like the cats- in the pet food left outside every day. YOU must fend off the skunks and endure their spraying up the neighborhood. Skunks love that cat food. And you must suffer in silence when the hords of cats play tag ON YOUR ROOF every night, because the colony has learned how to climb onto all of the neighbors roof, as entertainment and for warmth in colder weather.

Heaven forbid if you should complain to the public health and animal control officers in your town, your county, your state.

They smile, and say “not my problem!”

I must be honest. Cats are evil.

I actually spent 4 years on the campus that Winograd writes so much about and I must say that the cat situation there is as rosey as he paints it. TNR has really worked there.

As for my other observations of cat info, I noticed that the stats published by the HSUS shows that cat numbers are a much greater percent of the euthanasias than dogs, even more so than the slight difference in their population vs. dogs.

Cats are slightly more popular and dogs are in slightly more homes.

But where things get really different is where cats come from versus where dogs come from. Very few cats come from legit Breeders, or breeders at all.

http://borderwars.blogspot.com/2008/01/myth-of-christmas-puppies.html

Just read that post, or at least look at the chart. Only 4% of Cats come from Breeders.

If that chart is true, the entire culture of cats in this country is messed up.

All of them focus on dogs. Everyone talks about puppies this and pet stores that and etc. What about cats? There *are* feral cats everywhere and there *are* stray cats roaming the streets – I remember dozens around my college campus and the surrounding towns. There *are* still “oops” litters of cats all the time, too. There are cats everywhere.

I know from having found a pregnant stray a couple of years ago that it can be difficult to *give* kittens away (even really small, cute kittens who are already altered and vaccinated.) Some pet stores do sell cute little kittens, but I don’t see nearly as many selling kittens as puppies.

So my question is – if there’s no pet overpopulation, then where are all the homes clamoring for cats?

When’s the last time a neighbour had an ‘oops’ litter where you live? In my area, probably well over a decade due to high sterlization compliance.

Shelters are getting more and more dogs from outside their areas because there aren’t enough locally available to keep their adoption programs running.

And so on.

Overpopulation is a myth that serves the kill community, the self-styled, for-profit ‘rescues’ and animal rights zealots. It does nothing for the animals themselves.

You know how economists say that there is a “maximum” or “full” employment rate, usually around 5% unemployment. That means that in the most efficient economy we can still expect 5% at any one time.

Funny, but that’s about the exact same percent of animals that we kill in shelters. Except we kill them instead of keeping them alive long enough to find new homes.

As Jesus said “the poor will always be with us” … there will always be unemployed people at any one time and there will always dogs who need to be rehomed. It looks like 5% is a reasonable number.

The difference here is that if 5% are going to be abandoned, should we kill them or find them new homes?

To me a 5% failure rate is not excessive. Killing those 5% is.

Most of them see a way to make big bucks in a livestock operation on their land and run with it. There really isn’t a big dog ownership heritage in the PA Dutch (I trade BC stories with my sustainable ag collegues, but not with the Plain Sect folks), so to many of them, it’s literally making bigger bucks on dogs than one could with chickens (it doesn’t take up a lot of room, the kids can do it and the profits are high.)

The really weird thing is that pugs have become a big deal as companions for Amish woman. I think my Brethern grandfather would have screamed at me for hours if he saw me with a pug (you don’t know what he did to me when I was 6 years old and asked him to bring me red tomato plants instead of the yellow and orange ones he was favoring at the time because my friends were telling me that tomatoes should be red!) — he was a very practical guy that didn’t have room for frills.

I’m all for pressuring folks to get out of the puppy mill business — my neighbor has two Cockers because with the PA Dog Laws getting stricter, her Amish friend decided it was time to get out of the business.

PA seems to be doing a better job than CA — the laws are specifically aimed at the puppy mills and there’s enough outrage to keep the pressure on. I think if we can make puppy milling less profitable and do more salemanship on the rescue/shelter dogs, it will be better for everyone.

Dorene

The News-Herald Ohio auction story mentions ‘designer dogs’–specially bred mixes–going for up to $5,000.

At the same time, a good amount of work is involved. Pugs for example can be particularly hard to breed. Birthing is tough on the mother and they are finicky eaters when young.
(…)

Someone’s keeping all those Amish puppy mills in business. The Amish are not hobby breeders:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3dahl7

http://www.religioustolerance.org/amish8.htm

http://www.pixiedustpapillons.com/amish_puppy_mills.html

And all those big commercial puppy mills:
http://www.petconnection.com/blog/category/puppy-mills/

And puppy smuggling across the US-Mexico border:
http://www.cbp.gov/xp/CustomsToday/2006/jun_jul/other/puppies.xml
…some people are willing to take advantage of that love and are smuggling very young puppies from Mexico into the United States.

Purebred and designer breed puppies are purchased in Mexico for between $50 and $150, then sold at street corners, parking lots and flea markets in Southern California for between $300 and $1,000 each, according to the Border Puppy Task Force. The Task Force is a group of 14 California animal welfare and law enforcement agencies including U.S. Customs and Border Protection and initiated by the San Diego Humane Society. The Task Force was formed in 2004 after a rash of complaints from owners who reported their dogs were getting sick and often dying.

The Border Puppy Task Force conducted a two-week statistic gathering operation at the Otay Mesa and San Ysidro ports of entry. The findings were announced at a press conference held on December 20, 2005 at the San Ysidro border crossing. The operation looked at animals brought from Mexico to the United States. During the two-week study 362 puppies under the age of 3 months were brought into the United States from the two points of entry. Over a year’s time, that equates to almost 10,000 young puppies entering San Diego County.

Puppies were found packed in glove compartments and truck beds. Some of them don’t have teeth, are drenched in vomit, or are barely weaned. “Puppy peddling is better than selling drugs. The consequences are far less,” said Simran Zilaro, with San Diego Humane Society.

“Most of these pups are bred in Mexico, pulled from their mothers at four to five weeks of age, sold south of the border and smuggled across into the United States for sale,” said Capt. Aaron Reyes of the task force. “Each bust leads us to yet another seller and we’re following up on leads as quickly as we can.”